"I love to see the temple...I'll go inside some day!"

Taking your child to the temple for the first time is a pretty momentous occasion. Baptisms are awesome. But to escort your child through as they receive their endowments, make sacred covenants and take in the whole temple experience....well, it's hard to find the words to describe the many emotions wrapped around that event.

Rebekah has attachments to a few temples. The Bountiful Temple is our home temple, the one she has performed countless baptisms for the dead in. The one where she made trip after early morning trip up the hill for "Temple Tuesday" with her friends from high school...getting up extra early on the high school's late start Tuesday schedule to fit in a temple trip before school started for the day.

The Logan Temple became special to her this past year when she was attending Utah State University. It was at that temple that while doing baptisms, she spent much time in prayer and contemplation as to whether or not she should serve a mission.

The Jordan River Temple can now be added to that list of special temples. Realistically, the Bountiful Temple was our obvious choice when setting up an appointment for Rebekah to receive her endowments. However, the Bountiful Temple was closed during the week we had chosen. The Jordan River Temple was not only closer to all the grandparents and family who wanted to go through the temple with her, but also and even more specially...the Jordan River Temple is where Bryan and I both received our endowments and also were sealed.

On March 11th...a Wednesday afternoon, Rebekah entered the front doors of the temple and rather go downstairs to the baptistry, continued past the recommend desk and on into the main part of that beautiful building. It was an amazing experience. One thing that was neat for me was that because this was Rebekah's first time, they let her get ready in what they used to call "the bride's room." I think now they find that equal number of girls are going through the temple in preparation for a mission as for a wedding so they have stopped calling it "the bride's room." But it was sentimental for me because as was helping Rebekah get dressed and ready for her temple session in the same room that my mother helped me get ready to receive my endowments and then the actual sealing the next day.

A "parent's payday" is how I heard it described by many friends and neighbors. And while that is true...it's so much more than that!