How Many More Times Will We Get To Do This?

We'll soon have our own temple (in Langley), so we don't have many more six hours of movies in the car, all-you-can-eat buffets, kill time at the park down the street, blow money at Deseret Book trips in our future.

I will miss them.

In some ways the six hours of time to connect with my husband, the sacrifice of a little time and money, and the preparations necessary to make it a happy experience for my kids make our temple trips each month all the sweeter.

Maybe I'll still go to Seattle even when there's a temple down the street.

All I know is that when we lived in Salt Lake, with temples around every corner, we often missed attending every month. Since we've lived in Vancouver, we rarely miss a month, even though it requires much more of us. Why is that?

"I hope you are using the temple constantly, because you will gain blessings there that you cannot gain anywhere else on the face of the whole earth. The temple stands as a monument for all to see. It stands as a statement that we as a people believe in the immortality of the human soul. Everything that occurs in that temple is of an uplifting and ennobling kind. It speaks of life here and life beyond the grave. It speaks of the importance of the individual as a child of God. It speaks of the importance of the family as a creation of the Almighty. It speaks of the eternity of the marriage relationship. It speaks of going on to greater glory. It is a place of light, a place of peace, a place of love where we deal with the things of eternity." (Gordon B. Hinckley)