No more posting from phone? and other things

Ok so I tried to post earlier from my cell phone, doesn't look like that worked out too well. I'll try to fill in the blanks tomorrow.

Goodnight for now.. this girlie is tired and has a long fun-filled/exciting week ahead.

This Friday we are doing our endowments and this Saturday is the sealing. So excited! I keep thinking this Sunday we'll be wearing garments.. I mean obviously we'll be wearing them on Friday and Saturday.. but it will be the first Sunday that we'll be wearing them in church. Um just to clarify.. we will also have clothes on.

Who would have thought that one day I'd be excited to wear garments? :)

Searching for white...and another anniversary to celebrate

What a day. We met my mom around 11:00 am to look for temple clothing, etc. We got there a bit before her and it was a bit overwhelming. John and I just looked at each other and at about the same time, said "I don't even know where to begin." Luckily they have people working there to help with that. :)

A nice lady started showing John the Men's clothing and then led me to the dresses. She showed me the "petite" section. Aw, she noticed my short legs.. Petite should be a compliment, but I realized for me, it just means I'm short and fat. Dang it! As I started looking at dresses, my mom arrived. I found 2 dresses I liked. One, of them matched the dress we were going to get for my youngest daughter. I couldn't decide. The first one I chose had sunflowers on it, the second had roses. One was slightly more flattering, but the other was more of what I was looking for which was to look somewhat like a wedding dress. I decided to get them both. We get 1/2 off for our first time buying temple clothing and I figured I'd have a dress to wear next time.. which means I now have to go at LEAST a 2nd time.. :) See how that works? lol

I started looking at everything else.. but couldn't stay focused. I needed to look at shoes, I needed a smaller slip, one of the dresses had a messed up zipper, put that one back, picked up another, it had a small stain on it... I was getting a bit of anxiety. But it was all in a good way. I found the 2 dresses I wanted without stains or broken zippers, I couldn't decide on shoes. I found some darling white Mary Janes, but no sizes to fit me just right. I wanted slippers, but no luck on the sized there either.

The dress we found for our daughter was not the right size. So the helpful lady called another location for the slip, dress and slippers. I believe my mom picked them up for us tonight.

OH, that's another thing.. we forgot our temple recommend. I was sick to my stomach! We were 45 minutes away from home, we couldn't just hurry home and get it. Especially not in the rain! Luckily we were able to buy everything with my mom's recommend, no problem. Phew!

We picked out our garments- 2 pair to try for now and then we'll go back when we decide just which kind we prefer. At the checkout I luckily remembered another thing that we needed for the temple... our packet of accessories.

It took us 2 hours, but what a thrill. I then had to go find a plain white bra.

I hope that we don't forget anything and that it all goes as smoothly as possible. I can be quite chaotic at times.

Tomorrow is October 1st. 15 years ago John and I went on our 1st date to Homecoming at Alta High School. Wow! We went as friends and returned as best friends, falling in love, just like in my dream. I'll save that for another post. Goodnight!

This moment won't last

Don't you just love new and exciting things? Today I am going to check out temple attire with my mom and youngest daughter. Hubby got the day off (worked a double shift yesterday) so he will be joining us. First experiences can be so cool and memorable. This will obviously be the 1st time I go looking/shopping for temple clothing, etc. I am glad John will be coming with us. I was excited to share the day with my mom, but I'm sure glad that John will be involved. Not that he's a huge fan of shopping, but this is all new to him too and it's nice to have someone go with you. We can all share in it together. BTW, John is a pretty good shopper. Not too many complaints there. I think he gets it from his mom. :)

I hope I can find a temple dress that is flattering. I want it to be a dress not a skirt and top, so we'll see what I can find. I also (as much as I love my MIL) would hope that we don't end up wearing the same dress. I mean, I just don't know how many options there are. I want it to reflect me at least a little bit. Better go shower and get ready for the day.

Can check that off the list

Temple appointments are made. We will be able to get sealed on October 10th at 4:00.

Wow, it's all happening so fast. I'm getting butterflies, lovely fluttering flutterbies.

A little bummed

Can't make temple appointment today- temple is closed on Mondays. Plenty of other stuff to get done today, just sad that this isn't one of them.

So much to do and so excited to do it...

Now that John has the Melchezadik priesthood and we both have our temple recommends, we can make an appointment to go to the temple. I have a few things to get squared away this week:
1- Get temple clothing
2- Can I wear my wedding dress?
3- Does my wedding dress fit me if I can wear it?
4- What are we doing to celebrate after the temple? And where are we doing it?
5- Can I remember to invite everybody? Can I give them enough notice once the appts are made?
6- Can I stay focused on other things I need to do in the next 12 days? (probably not)
7- I'm sure I'm forgetting something
8- Oh yeah, I actually have to MAKE the appointment :)

Non temple things this week:

1- Put up Halloween decorations
2- Scentsy party for my sister tomorrow night
3- Avon orders due on Wednesday
4- Try to focus and remember to breathe!
5- Prepare for Bunco at my house for Friday night
6- More that I'm probably not remembering at this point

I am way too excited.. well not really you can't be too excited about stuff like this. I am just so thrilled. It's like I get to remarry my husband only better. I feel like this is a chance for us to start over in a way. Leave all the bad stuff behind and have a better happier marriage. We have already started that process though. Obviously we don't have a bad unhappy marriage or we wouldn't be here now. There's just some stuff in the past that we're happy to leave in the past. Anyway we've always talked about renewing our vows. This is 10 times better!

John and I were talking about it all yesterday. Our kids are very lucky to be a part of this. To be old enough to take it all in and experience the temple with us. It will be very memorable for all of us. Speaking of the kids, Jessica keeps reminding me at least once a day that she likes the temple. The other day she told me, "Mom the temple is cool it is not boring." I am now remembering that a few months ago she said the same thing about church, lol.
She also said "Mom is Jesus happy about what I said that about the temple?" I said "Yes he is very happy." Yesterday her older brother was picking on her.. she said "Jeremy, Jesus does not want you to do that.. Jesus, please tell him to stop."

Full Speed Ahead

So we've been on the fast course to the temple. We started seriously going back to church early Spring. John received the Aaronic Priesthood (became a Priest) in July and then was able to baptize our oldest kids. We started our temple classes/lessons in August I believe. We were told to go ahead and get the appointment with the temple recently. The bishop wasn't sure if they'd be open on October 3rd when we originally wanted to go through. So I called about 2 weeks ago. I found out that the temple was indeed closed for conference that day. Ok so let's see about October 10h. They are open, ok nice sweet lady goes through a list of questions, I ask her a few questions, etc. Then she asks me if my husband has received the melchezadik priesthood. No not yet. Ok she says sweetly, just call us back when he has and we'll get your appointment set up. Not too frustrating, it all makes sense, we just don't want to wait until the last minute to get an appointment. We've got a few things to get before hand, so the next 2 weeks will be frantic indeed, but in the best way possible!

So now we've finished with our temple classes and next step is John becoming an Elder and receiving the melchezadik priesthood. Our good friend helped us get a last minute interview to set it all up. So this morning I get a call to come in and have John meet with the stake president. Great! Our church starts at 1:00 PM. We head over to the stake center and have a 10:30 AM appointment. Well really John had the appointment. They then bring me in and happily inform me that my husband is worthy and can now be ordained an Elder. Yay! Now we need to have an interview with the bishop and stake president to get our temple recommends. We are told that John will probably be ordained the 11th of October and then we're good to go with getting interviewed and going to the temple.. Ah yes, but we were hoping to go to the temple on October 10th. Ok, then let's see if we can get it all done today. We'll get him ordained today and if you can get an interview with the bishop before sacrament, then we can do your other interview sometime after. Woohoo, full speed ahead! So we run over to our church house hoping to squeeze in an interview with the bishop. We are able to get that done around 11:45 AM. John was ordained about 2:30 PM and our final appointment with the stake president was about 2:50 PM. That's a lot in one day. :)

It all happened very fast and rather smooth I must say. My husband is now an Elder and we have our temple recommends. It is a bit surreal and rather exciting!
Oh one thing I didn't expect... in the middle of the interview the stake president asked us to do 2 things for him. For me I was to only wear 1 set of earrings from here on out (I have 3 sets now) and John was to be clean shaven. (he had a little patch on his chin) No problem. He's used to being clean shave after 10 years in the military and I do not mind taking out my extra earrings. Today my marriage extension has been approved.(we also get to keep the kids a little bit longer) What more could I ask for?

On our way to the temple

I'm just going to dive right in.

I typed this up this morning to document our journey so far:

John and I just celebrated our 12th anniversary. We were married September 20, 1997. Our 1st child, Jeremy, was 6 months old. Our first date was October 1, 1994. We knew of each other in middle school, but became friends in high school through my friend Terrill. I have told those stories in other settings, papers, hopefully a book one day.

The past was filled with ups and downs. Now we look to the future, our future. I think I have always hoped and prayed that this would happen. I have always been a spiritual person. John and I were both raised in LDS families. We both went to church when we were younger and stopped going around the age of 15. We would go here and there though on occasion.

While John was in the Navy, we lived in Mayport, Florida and San Diego, California. During those times away from family and friends, we welcomed many missionaries into our home(s). It was nice to have something positive, friendly and familiar in our lives. We went to church once in awhile. It was not always easy to choose to spend our time at church when our time together was so limited. John was gone a lot and Sundays were sometimes his only day to be with us. By this point we had 2 girls, Tristan and Jessica.

John would always talk about maybe going back to church when he got out of the Navy. In 2006, we bought our 2nd house in Utah. We are currently there now. This neighborhood is amazing. When we first moved here we immediately saw how great the people were. Many people were willing to help the moment our moving truck arrived at 7:00 in the morning. Some men went to work late so they could help us. There were even small children carrying boxes to where they needed to go. I had just given birth to a surrogate baby and I couldn’t help much. It took John and his sister about 2 full days to load that moving truck. Our new neighbors had it unloaded in about an hour. We were so impressed with this little town we had moved to.

We started to get to know people in the church a little bit. They were all so sweet and wonderful. We went to church 2-3 times a year. We went to a few activities and the church helped us in many ways.

At the end of October 2008, John got out of the Navy. I had recently become pregnant with twins as a surrogate. By the way, surrogacy is a very spiritual experience for me and has brought me closer to God. I was not feeling good very often, but we managed to go to church once or twice between Fall and Winter. The Draper, Utah temple had recently been built and we attended the Open House with John’s parents and our kids. I had been on bed rest and still had to take it easy. I could not walk much, so they had to get me a wheelchair. (this happened everywhere we went, Walmart, Home Depot, I spent a good amount of time in wheelchairs during that pregnancy) It was a nice experience to enjoy the beauty and peacefulness inside the temple. It was so nice to share that as a family.

As Spring came and I got nearer to delivery, we went to church a few more times. It was hard though, because I was getting very big and uncomfortable at this point. I was on bed rest in December for a little bit and then again in March/April. I started going into labor in early April and I wasn’t due until June. I was put in the hospital on strict bed rest for a week. On April 15, 2009, there was no stopping those babies. I had a c-section and was happy to see that the babies were healthy. I was in the hospital for a few days and then home for recovery.

The next few weeks were hard as I tried to recover physically and emotionally. I was happy that the babies would be with their parents, but a lot had gone on during that pregnancy and delivery and it was exhausting. John suggested we start going back to church about once a month. I said sure.

Well, once a month turned in to once a week. I think John wanted it more for our kids then for ourselves. But the funny thing is, that our kids were sleeping over at one of the grandparents house every other weekend and we were still going to church with or without them. We started talking about getting the kids baptized. The age for that is 8 and our oldest kids were 12 and 9. It was hard to get them baptized at 8 because of the military. We were either living out of state and wanted to get them baptized in Utah with our family, or we were living in Utah but John wasn’t around long enough to schedule a baptism. It just wasn’t lining up right. Also there was the question of who to baptize the kids?

We started having the missionaries over to teach the kids. It was a nice refresher for John and I and we learned some things along the way that we had either forgotten or not realized. The missionaries asked who would baptize the kids? We started the discussion again. They asked if maybe John could do it. John didn’t think he could get ready in time. We had already waited to have them baptize and he didn’t want to hold them back any longer. The missionaries told him that it probably wouldn’t take as long as he thought.

We had a goal to baptize the kids and for John to be the one to baptize them. As we went through the process I jokingly referred to my husband as John the Baptist. There were certainly struggles along the way. Even though it was hard at times, we had never felt happier. I didn’t even know we could be happier. I thought we had a great marriage, I thought I was a very happy, positive person. I didn’t expect such a new level of happiness, pure joy. People were telling John that I just glowed. I was so proud of John and how far he had come and how far he had brought us as a couple and a family. I was so proud that he was the one to get us to that point.

John was finally ordained a priest and the kids were baptized July 18, 2009. We wanted to baptize them on John’s birthday, but it was on the 20th, which was a Monday. We figured it would be better to baptize them on a Saturday, so that more people could come to the baptism. What an amazing day. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I was so proud of our little family, so excited for the kids. I was blown away by the support we had. I’ve never seen so many people at a baptism. That room was as full as it could be. It was overwhelming in the most wonderful way. The Sprit was so strong.

Our next goal was the temple. Who knew that this year would be filled with so many wonderful experiences? Who knew that this is what we’d be doing at this time? It was so exciting to be heading in such a positive direction. We noticed little changes throughout our family and our families. There was more of an overall peace and happiness at home. I was feeling God smiling down at us. We were becoming closer to members of the ward and making some great friendships. We were getting to know people better that we already knew and meeting more great people along the way.

We were going to be taking a temple preparation class and John suggested that our friends, Jake and Sariah Buntjer be the ones to teach us. We have enjoyed meeting with them each week. We hope that we have found a long-lasting friendship with them. We also got to know a new neighbor across the street, Robert Nakagawa. I hope I spelled that right. He is a new convert and has been doing the temple lessons with us. He has brought so much to the lessons. It’s been great to be around him and his enthusiasm and love for the gospel.

One evening, we watched a really neat movie about temples. John was tired that day, so he didn’t see all of it. We ended up watching it at home a week or 2 later with my mom and our kids. We would stop and discuss things during the movie. At one point, our daughter Jessica who is 5 said, “Mom, I really like the temple.” I said, “Me too.” She said, “Do you want to know what I like best about the temple?” I said, “Sure.” She said, “The part where the light was shining up at Jesus.” I said, “Oh. Where did you see that? Was that in the movie? I don’t remember that part.” She said, “No, I didn’t see it in the movie, I saw it when we were in the temple.” What an amazing experience for a little girl. I was so happy that she had experienced something like that. She can’t wait to turn 8 so she can get baptized.

In August 2009, we had the opportunity to go to a temple dedication for the new Oquirrh Mountain temple. This took place at our Stake Center. We watched the broadcast there of the actual dedication. We were told that during that time, the church itself would be a temple. Wow, what an amazing feeling. I absolutely felt like we were in the temple. I have been like a sponge recently, just absorbing it all. I have been so spiritually open and available for spiritual knowledge and experience. With that, I have also been able to focus more on other things. My life seems a little less chaotic.

Anyway, one particular talk really stood out to me at the dedication, it was by President Uchtdorf. He told of Sanford and Thomas Bingham, the brothers who settled the area where the temple now stands. This stood out to me because John is related to the Bingham family.

I found this on another blog. Apparantly she is also related to the Binghams:
(found at http://christinescorner23.blogspot.com)


” The Bingham family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Vermont, later joining the saints who gathered in Kirtland, Ohio and later Nauvoo. When the saints began their exodus to the west, the family joined; Father Erastus was a captain of ten wagons in the Daniel Spencer Hundred, the second company of pioneers. The eldest son Sanford who had been crippled from birth, made the trip on horseback, driving cattle along the way. He and his bride, Martha Ann, were married by Parley P. Pratt in Nebraska and it was their job to supply the company with milk and butter. His younger brother, Thomas and several other brothers joined the Mormon Battalion along the route and rejoined the company to enter the valley in September 1847.

The following spring, Sanford and Thomas were given the assignment to tend the livestock in the canyon southeast of the Salt Lake Valley. While there, the brothers discovered rich mineral deposits but they were counseled by President Brigham Young that they should continue their farming and herding, as this is what the people needed. The canyon proved to be an ideal place not only for cattle and farming, but cutting timber. Within a few years, Archibald and Robert Gardner were directed to build a sawmill nearby and wagon-loads of timber were taken from the canyon’s hillsides including most of the wood used to construct the roof of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

Though the Bingham family never benefited financially from the rich copper, gold, silver and lead later mined in the canyon, Pres. Uchtdorf reminded us they were spiritually strengthened by following the words of their prophet and leader. He shared the story of when Indians broke into the cabin where Martha Ann was alone with the children, busy ironing. Pres. Uchtdorf said that her tenacity, courage and confidence protected her and the Indians left without harming them. Family lore says that she was so upset when they sat on her freshly ironed clothing, that she grabbed their hair and threw them out. Whichever way, those Binghams were strong people and greatly blessed.”

I don’t remember if it was before or after the dedication, but we were at Lagoon recently and visited Pioneer Park where the famous Bingham Cabin is now located.

We weren’t sure which temple we should go to for our sealing. We were considering the Oquirrh Mountain Temple since it was new and close by. However, I don’t always like to do the “new and popular” things. When I heard that talk though, I knew we had found “our” temple.

I would like to mention some other interesting facts about the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.

This is taken from the temple website:

”The spire of the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple was installed atop the temple on July 11, 2008, immediately followed by installation of a gold-leafed statue of the angel Moroni.
Lightning struck the angel Moroni statue atop the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple on Saturday afternoon, June 13, 2009, during the public open house. The powerful bolt of lightning blackened Moroni's trumpet, arm, and face. A replacement statue was installed on August 11, 2009, 10 days before the dedicatory services began.

The ordinance room murals in the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple were painted by artists who were called as "art missionaries" for the Church.
President Thomas S. Monson dedicated the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple on his 82nd birthday. The crowd gathered for the cornerstone ceremony spontaneously sang him a birthday song. For the first time in Utah's history, church was cancelled statewide on August 23, 2009, to allow members to attend the dedication of the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple without conflict.”

We finished our last temple lesson last night, September 24, 2009. We are 2 weeks away from our goal of being sealed together as a family in the temple. We were hoping to go through on September 20 for our anniversary. However, this year that was on a Sunday so that wouldn’t work. We certainly didn’t want to wait another year. So we tried lining it up with our 1st dating anniversary of October 1st. But we figured it’s always easier to get everyone together on a Saturday. So we were going to choose the closest Saturday which would be October 3rd. However, General Conference is that weekend, so the temples will be closed. We are now hoping to go through on Saturday October 10th. That is a good date, because our wedding anniversary is a combination of our birthdays. My birthday is September 10th, John’s is July 20th, so we got married on September 20th. Well our first date was October 1st and my birthday is on the 10th, so October 10th is a combination of the two.

John still needs to become an Elder and receive the melchezadik priesthood. That should be happening this Sunday.

I would like to mention I believe this is all happening at the best time for us. I mean I think it means more now than it would have before. We had to go through other experiences to appreciate what we are going through and about to go through. Things lined up for us recently. I think it started with moving to Eagle Mountain, then, John getting out of the Navy. Also, John had to want this as well. It wouldn’t have meant anything if he was “just doing it for me”. John was lucky to have been able to get a job here. Money is a lot tighter, but we’ve never been happier.

Notes on pictures:

The picture of the temple is one I snapped passing by on Bangerter Hwy. It was a shot looking back.