The Gilbert Arizona Tempe

This weekend was the groundbreaking for the Gilbert Arizona Temple. I am so excited to be here for this! We have had the Mesa temple since the 1920's and this will be a second one right here in the valley. I am mostly excited to take my girls through it once it's finished. That is honestly my biggest excitement - to see their faces and they look upon the beauty of the celestial room and the bride's room. I can't wait. We opted out of going to the actual site and went to the stake center instead to see a broadcast. I just didn't want to battle thousands of people with a 2 1/2 year old for hours -- because I'm sure people were there very very early!

Our stake presidency has prepared for this for a while and had a stake theme all ready for us. A few months ago they asked us to go the the site and take a family picture so that we can go back once it's built and take another picture with the temple there and compare the two and see how much we've grown spiritually during that time. At the time, it was vague, but after stake conference this weekend, it all makes sense and I'm excited about it!

We haven't gone back to get another picture and we need to before they get started too much! We took this when Nate was in Texas. But we need another with him! And it was windy and the girls weren't happy and this picture isn't framed too well with the equipment in the back. Just to the right of us are some beautiful mountains - much prettier than equipment. I'll have to post an updated version with Nate in it when we get out there again.

The adult session Saturday night was great. I felt so uplifted and ready to do better in my life. Here's the blueprint that will take us "from groundbreaking to dedication" so that we can see how far we've come on our own temple (ourselves).

They are all very basic gospel principles, but there are some specific things as well. For example, we are to pray daily as families and individuals, but they don't stop there. We are to pray "that our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will increase, that He will bless each person and family living within the boundaries of our ward and stake, and that we will reach out in love and service to each other."

On "attend the temple" we are instructed to not only go frequently but to pray for those things mentioned above when we are in the temple and we are to make a goal to attend and be accountable for that goal.

For studying the scriptures individually and as a family, they gave us numerous scriptures to read/discuss as a family (the border of the paper). I will say that we have only recently (since Nate got home) started consistently reading the scriptures as a family and it has been wonderful. Even Reagan gets to read and she looks forward to it -- Nate or I will say one or two words and she'll repeat them until her verse is over. It's funny because if she's doing something else and doesn't have her BOM open (which is almost the whole time), then she insists on opening it before she'll repeat what we tell her. She loves being a part of the reading. And the girls are doing great learning the lingo as they read. Plus, I love hearing Nate teach the girls.

Under service they talked a lot about serving not just our families or ward member, but also our neighbors. I need to reach out more to neighbors. Here in the valley, I think members have a reputation of keeping to ourselves and helping each other. I think the goal here is to change that perception so that more missionary experiences will open as this temple is built over the next few years.

So here we go on a quest to become better. . .