Mar 10 07

March 10, 2007

Well, it’s here and it happened. The big temple day actually took place. All seven of our little temple family came and took out their endowments. Of course there had to be a little drama, mainly that Alfred and Thelma arrived at 3:00 for the 3:30 session. But the counselor to the president held the session for them and the session actually only started about 10 minutes late.

We even got to be the witness couple. I didn’t know we were the witness couple until I came into the endowment room. Of course we were the very last ones into the session because we were with Alfred and Thelma. When they sat me in the chair Sis Wilcock reached up and tapped me on the shoulder and asked if we were the witness couple. I said, well, I’m in the chair so guess so. No one had told me. At that point it just felt like the blessings were being poured out faster than we could receive them.

When time came for the prayer circle everyone getting their own endowments came up to the circle. It was so amazing to be in the prayer circle with all of the people from Cibecue Branch.

The session was almost entirely filled with people there for Cibecue. We had lots of support from Show Low stake.

The temple workers were wonderful. One man who had worked there for 5 years said that was the most Lamanites they’d ever had in the temple at one time. Actually, we ended up with 9 Apaches there, because Verbena’s mother-in-law came to be her escort and also Dion, Verbena’s husband, who had been through the temple when he went on his mission in addition to the 7 getting their own endowments. I think the workers were as excited as we were.

Afterward we spent a long time taking pictures and then went to McDonald’s for something to eat before we went home.

On the way home Dion and Verbena were having trouble with their car, so we wanted to follow them down the canyon. We had to wait for them in Show Low, so Robert just pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. Pretty soon a policeman pulled up and turned his lights on. When he came to talk to Robert, the man was very nice and just said to turn our emergency lights on so other cars would see us. Cheryl and Murphy were with us so we laughed because when they were with us on Wednesday we got a flat tire and tonight we said they almost got arrested hanging out with us. They many never want to go anywhere with us again.

We came home late and very tired. Alma was having problems with Gilbert again and knocked on the door at 11:30 and wanted to talk. We were so sound asleep it’s a miracle we heard her.

How do we describe our feelings about being in the temple today? If we never had another success we’d feel like the 18 months we spent here was worthwhile just for this. The spirit there was overwhelming. Brother McNeil said that was the best day he’d ever spent in the temple. It was indescribable. We’re just so grateful we were the couple serving in Cibecue when the Lord decided to make this happen.