Twin Falls Temple Open House

On Friday, August 8th, our little family drove to Twin Falls (about an hour away) for the Open House for the temple that they have finished. The temple will be dedicated this Sunday afternoon and will be broadcast to our church building. The people running the tour showed us a brief video in the adjacent church building and then went with our tour group. All temples are beautiful and are certainly fitting to be called a "House of the Lord" and it's so neat to be able to go inside them as they are all unique in their own way, while the Holy Spirit's presence is consistent among all of them. They are all definitely houses of prayer, worship, and holiness!

This is the "celestial room" of the Twin Falls Temple.
This is the "sealing room" where couples (and families) are married to one another for eternity. As we walked through the different rooms, it was amazing to be in there as a family together. When we went in the sealing room, it was so neat to stand with our little family (us holding our kids up high enough) and look into the large mirrors that face each other in the room that symbolize the eternal nature of our family as a result of our sealing in the Seattle Temple almost 7 years ago. It was really special to be there together. The kids did great generally and were fairly reverent throughout the whole tour, which was nice. If you would like to see more pictures of the Twin Falls Temple with the different rooms and such, click here.
Here is our family at the back of the temple. It would have been nicer if it was more close-up for us, but my sister wasn't there to help out with all that. But it is a pretty good picture for us!

After we toured the temple we went back to the adjacent church building where they had cookies and drinks as well as pictures and different things that teach about the temple. We then went out on the temple grounds and had a "picnic" with just a bunch of snacks for the kids to eat. I loved how when we were just sitting there snacking, Sarah asked me out of the blue: "Daddy, do you feel special here?" That made me smile! And I certainly did! We had a fun time sitting in the shade of the temple by a little fountain and were able to get some good pictures. The kids seemed to enjoy the trip.

Here is a cute picture of Sarah and Nathan together. Enjoy these pictures of Nathan's adorable hair and it's luscious length, because it's now much shorter... and Mary is actually more devastated about having to cut his hair then I am/was.