A Temple Testimony
I love to see the temple.
I'm going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I'll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.
I love to see the temple.
I'll go inside someday.
I'll cov'nant with my Father;
I'll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place
Where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I've learned this truth:
A fam'ly is forever.
I grew up on Cliffside Hill in Logan, Utah and every single day when we would drive down the hill on the way to school, grocery shopping, soccer practice, etc., my Mom would always sing this song to us as the beautiful Logan Utah temple would come into view on the hill opposite. Most days I would join her in song and it always brought an extra measure of the spirit into my heart to help me through the day.
Image of the Logan, Utah LDS Tempe found HERE
My parents taught my by their steady example of the importance of temple worship in their lives by going to serve in the Logan temple nearly every single week. Thereby, from the time I was old enough to form a bucket list, a temple marriage to a righteous priesthood man held the premier spot for the ultimate achievement on my list of life goals.
Burke and I in front of the Logan, Utah temple in June 2009.
In June of 2009, early on a beautiful summer morning, my mother and I drove the familiar road down Cliffside Hill. As the beautiful House of the Lord came into view, my Mom became quite emotional as she sang, "I love to see the temple, I'll go inside TODAY." Swapping the lyric of "someday" with "today" made the sight of the temple on the hill so deeply meaningful to me as I realized this was the day that I had been aiming and striving for my entire life. My temple sealing that day to Alan Burke Adams, my eternal companion, was truly the highlight of my life with so many incredible, happy, peaceful days and years that have followed from that monumental decision.
Burke too had been raised by faithful parents who had made temple attendance at the center of their lives. We both knew from example of our parents, as well as the counsel of the prophet and apostles, that our marriage and life would run so much smoother if we made temple worship a priority. Upon returning from our honeymoon, we settled into our cute little apartment on Cimmarron South in St. George just 3 blocks from the St. George, Utah Temple. We decided that we would put their words to the test and began to attend the temple every single week.
St. George Utah Temple Image Found HERE
Sometimes it was a challenge to find time for the temple due to the fact that Burke and I were both working full time from about 7 AM to 3 or 4 PM each day and going to school full time in the evenings. We also held callings in our ward and visit and home taught which occupied many of our week nights after classes. By the time we got to Saturday, we were completely worn out, overloaded with homework and ready to sleep in. But we persevered. We would wake early on Saturday and go to the temple for 2 to 3 hours and come back refreshed and edified, close to the spirit and to one another. In our first 2 years of marriage living in St. George, we never missed a week except for the 3 months we were away finishing Burke's Master's Degree in Paris, France and didn't have a temple within our same country! When the St. George temple was closed for cleaning, we drove the 2.5 hours to Las Vegas to attend the temple there and another time drove to Manti, Utah in order to keep our weekly streak strong.
At this time we had several other newly wed couple friends who complained of the HUGE adjustment marriage was; the fighting, the nagging, the blow ups and make ups. We would nod sympathetically and return home so very grateful that wasn't the adjustment to marriage we were experiencing. We both knew that we had many of the same flaws and struggles that our friends did, but we attributed the harmony in our marriage directly to the influence of the temple in our hearts and home.
In 2011, I graduated from college and gave birth to our daughter Daphne and Burke took a job in Mesquite, Nevada. Shortly after we moved to Mesquite and realized that with a little baby now in tow, we may not be able to continue our weekly attendance. We were sad to slacken the pace, but maintained a goal of once a month temple attendance. Again, we felt the positive difference temple attendance made in our lives.
Mesquite was a challenging time for me. I felt very isolated, alone and anxious to move onto the next step in our career and life. After about a year and half, I became annoyingly unsettled and discussed our "next step" over and over again with Burke. With no real idea of the direction we wanted to move, but knowing we needed to move somewhere, Burke and I fasted and prayed for more clear direction, for answers to come specifically as we went into the April 2013 General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was at this very conference that President Monson announced plans to build the Cedar City, Utah temple. As soon as I heard "Cedar City", my heart absolutely burned! At the conclusion of conference, Burke and I discussed what we had heard and felt. Both of us had felt a confirmation that Cedar City was the place we needed to move our family. The very next day, a Monday, Burke told his bosses that we would be moving to Cedar City in the next couple of months. They were blown away when they asked what he was going to do or where he was going to go with only the answer, "I don't know, but we feel like it's the right thing to do." Several months of agonizing turmoil followed that tested our commitment to our original prompting. We persisted in faith and at the last minute a job opened up in Cedar the very week before Burke's job in Mesquite ended.
During our 2 years in Mesquite and our now 4 years in Cedar, we have continued to attend the temple on a monthly basis, but have waited with such great excitement for the temple in Cedar City to be completed. On August 8 2015, the ground was broken and the site for construction dedicated. They broadcasted the event to all in our upcoming temple district and we were thrilled to drive up shortly after to view the site ourselves. Over the past 2 years, we have often driven by to see the progress. First the giant excavation hole, then the towering frame, next the outside paneling going up piece by piece and eventually the Angel Moroni statue being raised to the pinnacle, proclaiming the gospel to all the world!
Each of the above photos taken from the Cedar City Temple Facebook Page
We have told our girls over and over how blessed we are to have the temple coming to our city and just recently this summer took them up to the grounds for a Family Home Evening lesson on temple work and making temple worthiness the highest goal of our lives. It choked me up as we sat there looking at our little ladies with the temple behind them and we realized that there could be no greater joy in our lives than to see our children faithfully rooted in the gospel with firm testimonies of their own of Jesus Christ and eternal families.
Family night - smoothies and a temple site discussion on the purpose and blessing of temples.
As the completion of the temple has neared and preparations have begun for the 3 week long open house (running from October 27 - November 18) before the temple is dedicated, excitement in the community has continued to mount. About two months ago, Burke and I were asked by Bishop Drew if we would be willing to serve as tour guides during the temple open house. We were of course thrilled at the opportunity!
On Thursday, October 5, our stake held a meeting for all temple open house volunteers to come and learn the logistics and overview of what our responsibilities would entail. Our babysitters fell through, so Burke sent me and stayed home with the kids as it had been a long week with lots of meetings and he knew I needed a break from the bedtime routine that night. I am SO very grateful that he sent me as the meeting (though lengthy and at times a bit redundant) proved to be so spiritually uplifting in the end. The strong feelings I had that night, as well as President Rollins request that we all record our experiences with the temple, are what inspired me to record these thoughts on our journey with the temple.
A few things that stood out to me from that night was first the enormity of hosting a temple open house. In our meeting that night we had 500 temple volunteers from our stake to fill just 3 days of the open house and that was not including all the parking, security and medical volunteers for those days as well! The logistical nightmare left me a bit overwhelmed just thinking of trying to get an estimated 200,000 visitors bused to the grounds, into informational tents before entering the temple, the actual flow of the tours and leaving room for questions all while creating a peaceful and quiet environment for the spirit to be present to testify to people's hearts! What an undertaking!
The next thing that made me actually gasp was when President Randall explained the vital need for each volunteer to take their responsibilities seriously and rely on the spirit to help them. He spoke of a woman who was a "Positional Volunteer" at a recent temple open house at a temple in another state. Her job was to simply stand in the hall and point the visitors down the hall with a smile. However, she saw a woman leave the group and duck into a bathroom during the middle of the tour. Not knowing why, she felt prompted to follow the woman into the bathroom and came upon her as she was taking a can of spray paint out of her purse, intent on vandalizing the walls of the bathroom. Thank goodness that volunteer had followed the spirit and left her post! It made me sick to my stomach to think of someone being so disrespectful and defiling our house of worship - the house of God! - in such a horrible way.
After President Randall's thorough power point on each of the volunteer positions, President Rollins spoke. I have told Burke this many times, but have never put it in writing how much I admire that man. He simply exudes gentleness, goodness and humility. His Christ-like aura always seems to radiate from the pulpit as he speaks quietly, but powerfully with such deep gospel knowledge and eloquence. He is one special man. This night was like many other times over the past 3 years we have lived in the stake where I have felt the spirit burn within me, prompting me to make changes in my life, to do better, to BE better.
In this particular talk, President Rollins spoke of the first temple after the restoration of the gospel - the Kirtland Temple. He talked about Jesus Christ appearing after the temple had been dedicated and accepting the house as the house of God on the Earth. He recounted the many amazing things that were both seen and heard in the temple during that time.
He then related how the Cedar City Temple came to be. He said that he had been called as Stake President of the Enoch West Stake for less than a year when a council of stake presidents was called and they met with a representative of the Quorum of the 70 in 2012 to discuss what could be done to bring a temple to Cedar City. He said that they encouraged the stake presidents to compose a letter detailing the needs for a temple in our midst, which they did, specifically pointing out that of all the University towns in the state of Utah, we were the only one without the blessing of a temple in our midst. Less than a year later, in April 2013, they were shocked and thrilled to hear President Monson announce at General Conference that Cedar City would be receiving a temple. This was so very touching to me that these good men took it upon them to bring this blessing to our community and that the Lord heard and answered their plea!
The last thing that stuck out to me that night was President Rollins plea for us all to sanctify ourselves and be prepared to enter the House of the Lord. He asked us in his earnest and sincere manner to be worthy and to be more righteous than we have ever been before in our lives. This pierced my heart and I felt so deeply the need to step it up, to truly become more righteous than ever before in my life and a determination to make it so.
Cedar City Temple Image Found HERE
To any who may be reading this, I want to leave my personal witness that I know the temple is a place of holiness and peace. I know that by making it a priority in my life, I have seen direct blessing come to myself, my husband and our family. I am so grateful that I had goodly parents who taught me about the holiness of the temple and helped instill in me a desire to want those blessings for myself.
For anyone who may want to come to the Cedar City Temple Open House, I invite you to come and see what these sacred buildings are for and learn about the special ordinances that are preformed there. Once a temple is dedicated, only worthy members are allowed to enter, but before the dedication, it is open to the public for free tours to see the beautiful craftsmanship inside and to learn more about their purpose.
We would be happy to host you if you need a place to stay and even more happy to take you on a tour if you come on November 9th!
Oh, and just as a side note, the temple will be dedicated on Sunday, December 10 - my 30th birthday! I couldn't ask for a better gift than this!
Cedar City Temple Image Found HERE
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