Payson Temple

Today has been such a wonderful day!  We went to the Payson Temple Open House.  Ever since they announced a temple in Payson I have been really excited.  I have a lot of family history in Payson and many of my ancestors were among the first residents and so it was really exciting to think about how wonderful it must be for them looking down on what is happening.  

The temple is absolutely beautiful.  Really, one of my favorites.  Temples are such a sacred place and I find it so wonderful that even small children seem to sense the sacredness of temples.  Jacob was so reverent and just held my hand the entire time as we walked through.  When we walked into the baptismal font and I pointed out the oxen he started smiling and whispered, "dinosaurs."  And right before we walked out of the temple I pulled him off to the side and we were talking about the different things we saw and as we walked out he said, "bye temple."  I love him.

It was such a sweet experience being inside the temple with our little family.  Afterwards Mark and I were talking about how it made us both so excited to think of the future for our children and our family and other sacred experiences we can have together in the temple.  

  

I love the temple.  I am grateful for the opportunity we had to experience this beautiful house of the Lord.

Last night I decided that I wanted us to stop by the Payson City Cemetery because I wanted to look for some of our ancestor's that were buried there.  I went through my files and discovered that I have 237 members of our family buried there.  What?!  I quickly discovered that I could spend an entire day (if not more than that!) taking pictures and documenting our family there.  But we did look around and I found many of my pioneer ancestors that are laid to rest there.  I love cemeteries and think there is such a sweet spirit there as well.  It was actually pretty adorable as Mark laid on a blanket on the grass next to the car with Sarah and Jacob just held my hand walking around putting pine cones or leaves on the headstones of our family.  

A pretty perfect day - and a great family day.  Did I mention that Mark came home on Tuesday - FOR GOOD?!!!  We are loving every moment of our family together again.