Sacrifice Bring Forth the Blessings of Heaven

Thursday I was talking with a friend of mine and she told me that her mother in law had been discussing the Temple.  Her MIL had said that going to the Temple should never be convenient.  I had never thought of that, it most certainly isn't ever convenient for us.

Then later that day I was talking to the missionaries about sharing the Gospel.  There are a lot of excuses for not sharing the gospel, but they brought up a similar point to the above, that we shouldn't ever be in our comfort zone with the gospel.  If we're in our comfort zone, we probably aren't growing.

We need to be pulling and pushing and giving what we've got in order to grow.

Thank goodness for that perspective as we had a trip to the Temple planned this past weekend.  I booked out hotel room, a nice big suite to accommodate our big family a week or two in advance.  Quite early in comparison to the past couple months of Temple trips.  But they were already pretty booked (only 2 rooms left) so we got the $40 more expensive rate. Bummer.

The reason for a hotel for the whole family is that I have a nursing baby who I can't leave for the length of time needed for a Temple visit.  So rather than pay someone to watch the other 4 kids and still have to take the baby with us and tag team Temple work, we take the whole family and then the parent staying with the kids gets to have a place to be comfortable while they wait.  This hotel even had an indoor pool.  Score.

The plan this weekend was for me to get all packed, load up the kids, and pick my hubby up at work.  So I did just that.  Trouble was, my neck/shoulder started hurting quite badly while loading up.  I didn't do anything to it, but all of the sudden I couldn't turn my head.  But I managed to get everything done needed, so we picked up daddy and went on our merry way.  I was in pain the whole time and decided that I needed to just lay down that evening rather than go to the Temple.  I'd just go Saturday, hopefully feeling much better.

After the 3 hour drive, we pulled in to our hotel around 6:45 pm.  My husband went in to check us in and came out empty handed, telling me, "Their housekeeping staff walked out on them today and they don't have our room ready."  What??!?!?  I was pretty upset.  But we had to get dinner anyway, so we went and got dinner and some medicine for me.  At 8:10 pm we went back to the hotel.  I was horribly uncomfortable at this point.  Hubby went in and came back out again with no key, the room still wasn't ready!  One hour.  That's what they needed.

So my awesome man took the bull by the horns and found a playground for the kids.  A pretty spectacular playground actually.  We played (well, I tried to lay down in the van at first and gave up on finding a comfortable position) for an hour and got back to the hotel around 9:20 pm.  They were just about done with our room, so we filed in.  The littlest kids got put to bed (keep in mind our bedtime is usually 8 pm).  The oldest 2 stayed up watching a movie with dad.  Finally around 11:30 everyone was in bed and asleep.

My fabulous husband sacrificed doing a full endowment session so I could do some Temple work that day.  We both did initiatory.  I made appointments for us, but for some reason I wasn't on the schedule.  I was still in a bunch of pain so I only did about 30 minutes which seemed to work better for everyone.

As far as Temple trips goes, it was the hardest one yet.  But I'm so glad I was able to go and do even the smallest amount of work.  It filled me with joy.  The spirit is beautiful.  The goal to attend the Temple once a month is a big one, but I know that as we sacrifice blessings will come.  And as my dad mentioned to me after the fact, if nothing else it was a blessing for those people waiting for their work to be done!