In the last week I have gotten the chance to attend the temple 3 times! What a blessing! I have had ingrained in me since about 12 that the temple is a HUGE blessing because every year my family travels to Maui, HI for vacation and they do not have a temple on the island. They have to work up the money and sacrifice the time to fly to another island just to visit the temple! Needless to say I don't take it for granted. I LOVE visiting the temple and being able to attend as often as I want! So anyway I'll go from today to Tuesday to last Friday. So today my hubby and I got to go do some sealings and attend a session. We witnessed a man go through for the first time in a wheelchair and on oxygen! How cool that he got to experience that so late in his life! It is such an honor to be in sessions with people who clearly did not have a simple time getting there and getting through it! Tuesday night I got to go with some of my new ward sisters to the 6:30 session. It was so awesome! I am really loving our new ward and learning about the new sisters I get to be adopted in to! What a blessing that the church is the same everywhere and you instantly have new friends and family no matter where you move to! It's safe to say also that Summerlin is really growing on me! I love it here. So last Friday. My favorite temple visit so far. We walk up to the session room and I am so worried about where I'm sitting and where my husband is (because this is only my second session EVER) that I don't even look around the room. Well I figure out quickly that we are waiting for people that are company to a certain someone. But I can't figure out who this certain someone is. One of the sisters we were waiting for ends up sitting next to me. The session starts and I FINALLY realize there is a man at the front of the room in a bed. Like a hospital bed. I've now started to put the pieces together "his wife and 2 daughters" is who we were waiting for. This man was very close to the end of his life. Throughout the session he was adjusting and obviously needing some help so I paid a lot of attention to him. I figured out his wife was sitting in front of me. A daughter and granddaughter in front of her and a niece sitting beside me. The second time we were standing in the session I watched him very slowly motion to his brothers asking where his wife was. She saw it too. And when they made eye contact she made a gesture towards him to wave. It seemed like slow motion but with no hesitation he brought his hand up to his mouth to blow her a kiss. I lost it. How special that extremely simple gesture was but the love and compassion that came behind it, the care and worry in finding her in that moment was unforgettable and priceless. My husband sees me crying and motions over to me. At which case the niece next to me says "he has 2 weeks" and I took her hand. As we were waiting for the session to be over and to go to the celestial room she told me "his older brother is my dad, he's not even that old, just in May he was out with the family at my sons farewell playing wall ball, full head of jet black hair, and now this" then of course she had to remind herself of his humor and playfulness "you know when they had to shave his head, he had them shave it in a Mohawk" we both kinda giggled not losing a grip. He had gotten cancer and been given a small amount of time to live and this is where he wanted to spend it. In the temple, with his family, for the last time. Breathe taking!
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