Opening Day at Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Today is the "opening day" (for lack of a better term!) at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It is also the last day of summer for the junior high kids. I figured what better activity than to partake in something spiritual before being bombarded by real life in the junior high, so I took Justin and two of his friends, Brett and Victoria, to do baptisms this morning at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I'm so excited that they had a chance to not only serve and be uplifted, but also to be among the first to participate in that ordinance at this new and beautiful temple! Not many people can say that they attended a temple on "opening day!" The only bummer was forgetting the camera to record the event!

Along the same topic, we had a great experience on Saturday at the temple as well. I mentioned a few months back that I had been asked to sing in one of the choirs for the 5th session of the temple dedication. It was such an honor to be asked and an amazing experience to be a part of! From the very first meeting we had with all the choir members from all 9 choirs, I was in awe of the talent around me. When we sang just the opening song for that first meeting, I was almost literally blown out of the seat by the pure volume, talent, and spirit! It was awesome! (If only it could sound that way every week in church!) My choir was no different. It was obviously much smaller than that initial meeting, but full of so many talented people! 4 of the 31 in our choir were from our ward, and our choir consisted of 3 stakes! Speaks to the talent in our very own neighborhood! The whole experience was just fun.

We were able to have a practice in the temple before the dedication where we realized just how closely we would be standing to the prophet. I ended up directly behind him, about 1 1/2 feet away. We joked about rubbing his head, being as close as we were, but we were informed that should we get rowdy like that, his bodyguard in the second row was trained to jump over everyone to land directly in front of us and take us down! :) We decided to refrain.

Since I was in the choir, Paul received a ticket for that session as well. He was able to get 3 more tickets for all the boys but Eric. They were sitting in one of the endowment rooms. What a neat experience to have almost all of my family in the temple together to participate in such a great event! The boys were amazed to see me on "TV" and kept commenting on me standing right behind the prophet!

The meeting was really great! The spirit was incredibly strong. I have never sung the choir part of the Hosanna Anthem before, and it was an incredible experience. Many times while practicing that song, I was moved to tears. I know there were choirs of angels singing with us that day! I'm so grateful for the chance to be a part of the dedication, doing something I love that evokes such feelings of the spirit. I also feel very blessed to live where we do as it affords us many opportunities to be involved in experiences like this!