Brigham City Temple Open House

The only picture I got. Sad!!!!!! I've been thinking about our overall experience, at the Brigham City Temple Open House (For more info about LDS temples click here.)

My first visit was with the Youth from my church. This was a great experience, and I was thrilled to have 4 of my girls go! The Temple is beautiful, and it was really neat to see all the details that they added that are significant to the Brigham City area. (the peaches!!! :)) We went at 7:30 in the morning on a Monday so there weren't very many people there. I would say the overall experience was peaceful.

A few weeks later, this last Friday, John and I and our kids went. I'd been talking to Cache and Season about this for a few weeks but I especially talked about what it would be like early on that Friday. The kids were so excited to go. They didn't stop talking about it all day. We had tickets for the 6pm time. When John got home from work we were all ready to go, but he had things come up at work, and so didn't get away when he wanted. It was going to be close. Then I tried to start the car. For the past week or so we'd been having problems with our car battery. We'd always had jumper cables and been able to put the car in neutral to move it though so it wasn't an issue. This time however the car was so dead it wouldn't shift into neutral and our batteries were on opposite sides of our cars and the cable was not long enough. John went to work to grab a jumper cable box and got the car started.

By the time we left Logan it was past 6, but we were going late or not. Opposition... yes, Complete discouragement... no.We got there around 7 on a Friday night. Possibly one of the busiest times. The kids were still excited though. The kids loved the little bus ride we got to go on from our parking spot. We even drove by the biggest pumpkin I've ever seen growing in an incredible garden. It could have been Cinderella's coach!

Once we got to the Temple the Ooohs and Ahhhhhs started and we talked about how pretty it was.
Before you get to walk through the temple you get to watch a short movie that explains a little about temples and helps to set the spirit for when you enter. This is where our trouble with the kids started. As soon as we walked in the room Season started crying, then screaming, then throwing a full on temper tantrum. I couldn't distract her, I couldn't get her to calm down, and worst of all we were being a huge distraction. I finally left the room with her where she continued to throw her fit. At this point I tried to hold her, tried to set her down, let her roll around a bit while I completely ignored her, and then tried to pick her up again. Eventually she calmed down, but it was exasperating at the least. I had no idea what was wrong. I finally got to the conclusion that she was upset that we hadn't gone into the temple first. I hadn't explained about the video and maybe that threw her off.

  Once inside the temple I thought we were going to be good to go from there on out. Boy was I wrong. We first entered the Baptismal Font and Season and Cache loved it! Season kept saying "Oooh Pretty! Cows! Mooooo!" Since there were lots of people, we were in a line that walked through rather quickly. There really wasn't any stopping to enjoy anything, so as we were leaving that room Season got really upset again and started crying, "No!!!! Temple!!!!" At first I didn't understand, but finally realized she thought as we were leaving that room to go to another, that we were actually leaving the whole Temple. So I swam upstream to take her back to that room and explain that yes, we are in the Temple, but this is just one room, we still have lots of rooms to see. How do you explain that to an 18 month old???

The rest of the tour was a roller coaster. One minute happy children looking at pictures of Jesus, and beautiful mirrors, and the next minute we're trying to run after them dodging through people and end the chase in screaming kids. I felt awful! Why couldn't they recognize that we were in a special place and needed to be reverent? We teach them about this in family home evening, and practice every Sunday at church. We've talked to them probably on a daily basis about the Temple because they love it so much that every time we are on a drive they ask to drive by the Temple. They know that it is Jesus' home and how to act. Well, Cache does anyway, but Season gets all that too, so why couldn't she just behave when we actually had the chance to be inside one?

Right at the climax of Season's tantrum a Temple volunteer came up to me and asked if we wanted to try the elevator. For a brief moment I thought she was asking us to leave. My heart dropped and she must have seen the look on my face because she quickly explained that it might be a good distraction for the kids instead of taking the stairs up to the 2nd floor. What a great idea! I was so grateful and the kids were happy. Happy until Season didn't get to push the buttons in the elevator. Then the tantrum started all over again. Ugh!!!!!

There was a moment of peace when we went into the Celestial room and the children were quiet for the first 30 seconds. At that point I almost wanted to cry and was grateful for the 1/2 minute of peace, but then Cache started getting upset because he wanted to sit on the couches. Peaceful moment over.

 Next stop was a beautiful Sealing room. Cache immediately ran to the kneeling alter and jumped on it. I was mortified, the temple volunteers were mortified and I quickly pulled Cache off explaining that this was a very special place, this is where people get married, we can't play on it. To which Cache yelled out, " But MOM! I want to get married!!!!" I couldn't help but laugh through my embarrassment at that one.

At the end of it all I asked John if he had actually see any of it, already knowing the answer was no. I wondered why we even bothered. I wondered if we'd ruined the experience for everyone else around us. My conclusion is that though our kids may not have acted like they got anything out of it at all, and we were completely exhausted at the end of the whole ordeal, that somehow, at some time I'll understand why I felt that it was so important for us to go. It may not be now or in this lifetime, but we did what we felt we needed to. It was an act of Faith for John and I to just go anyway when the opposition was so strong from the very beginning, and I know we'll be blessed for it.    

We love the Temple. We know that because of them we can be with our families forever. We are grateful to have another one so close to us.

The only other picture I got of that night. We were happy to eat at the end of our exhausting experience.