Here's a recipe for disaster:Seven hours in the company of twenty teenagers; many of them tired, all of them hungry. Add to the mix wet hair, runny mascara, ill-fitting jumpsuits, cell phone withdrawal, and several sets of siblings. What do you have? The perfect little petri dish for growing a good crop of adolescent angst, teasing and general crankiness. Right?
WRONG!!!
It 's unusual for me to spend that much time with a bunch of teenagers and be irritated by NOTHING. I'm sure if we had spent the day at the beach, or water skiing on Lake Buena Vista I would have been trying to poke out my own eyes about hour 2, but that is the miracle of the temple. I was very pleased with the spirit that our youth brought into the temple and maintained while doing baptisms for the dead today. They were patient, helpful and reverent. While waiting their turn they were contemplative, many of them reading their scriptures. It was good for me to see this side of them because Wednesday night is WATER GAMES and I'm sure I will go back to being irritated. In the meantime, I will bask a little longer in the miracle of the temple.
I have had similar experiences going on youth temple trips. One of the funnier memories was when Reed was just barely old enough to do baptisms at the temple. I went along on the 9 hour trip to the Dallas temple in the car with several of the deacons. Every time our substantial caravan of cars stopped, one of the boys would buy a large drink. After several stops, and when we were driving a particularly long stretch of highway between towns, he began squirming. It was at least another 45 minutes before we were going to come to a town and due to the mixed company in the caravan and a notorious lack of trees in the Panhandle, he was forced to wait. Reed helpfully observed that it was good missionary training. That when you became a missionary they had only one "P-day" a week.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the trip was very nice. Even as a angst filled, difficult teenager, I was always able to feel the spirit of the temple. Somehow the temple transcended all of that!
ReplyDeletePEACE comes along once in a while and those once in a whiles usually occur at the temple. Loved you post.
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