S + D + d + p + d: San Diego, Tijuana, and the Birthday Girls

These are the times at which I awoke on the first three days of this week:

3:00 AM

4:00 AM

2:00 AM

More about that later.

Last Sunday Gideon and Jude joined us for church. Just after we settled into our pew Elder M. Russell Ballard (a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - the Mormons) walked into our Sacrament Meeting. He was there to participate in the baby blessing of his great-grandson. At the conclusion of the meeting he was given a few minutes to address the congregation and I felt that his comments were directed at me. He looked out at all of the people and said (I'm paraphrasing), "As I look out over this congregation I'm reminded of a time in 1958 when I was in the bishopric of a young ward with lots of kids. There are a lot of children here." We do indeed have A LOT of children in our ward (our church group). "Bless you, mothers and fathers, for all that you do for your children. Be patient. They will grow up." Then he told of a letter he received from a woman who was recently converted to the Church in Provo, Utah. In her letter she complained to Elder Ballard about the lack of reverence in Mormon church meetings. She claimed noise from the children was to blame. I love what Elder Ballard said regarding this perceived lack of reverence. "Children's voices are never irreverence. They are where they need to be, at church with their mothers and fathers." His few minutes of comments were perfect for me. After the meeting I took Gideon and Jude up to the front of the chapel to shake hands with Elder Ballard.

Dad and I woke up at 3:00 AM on Monday to catch a flight to Los Angeles and then on to San Diego to visit Lizzie and Dan and their boys.

We went from very cold temperatures to sunny, 70-degree California weather. I immediately changed into shorts and flip-flops.

Pushing the boys on their tree swing.

Lizzie and Dan have some fruit trees, and boy did we take advantage of that orange tree! Here Grandpa (my Dad) is squeezing oranges with Karsten.

A hammock with a tall glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Twas a small piece of heaven.

With Magnus

I could get used to this.

We made a wedding anniversary message to send back to Granny (my Mom), because we took her husband away from her on their anniversary.

On Tuesday Dad and I drove 90 minutes to the border with Mexico. We parked the car on the U.S. side of the border, walked across (it certainly isn't clearly marked how to get across the border), and took a taxi to the Tijuana Temple.

Oh, what a beautiful morning we had at the temple. We participated in some initiatory work and then one of the North American sister temple missionaries gave us a tour of the entire temple (including the bride's room). The only reason she was able to do that was due to a malfunction in the temple's equipment that morning. They had to cancel the 9:00 AM session and coordinate with Salt Lake City to get the equipment back up and running. We were blessed because of that equipment failure.

The architecture of this temple is quite unique.

Just before we departed the temple to head back into the States we enjoyed sitting in the temple president's office (President Clark Hinckley - son of former Church President Gordon B. Hinckley) for about 20 minutes chatting with him and his wife. Dad knows Clark from their missionary days in Argentina in the late 1960s. I want to tell you how Clark was called to be President of the Tijuana Temple. He and his wife submitted papers to serve in the Manhattan (New York City) Temple as regular temple workers. A short while later Clark received a phone call from President Eyring (current member of the Church's First Presidency). Clark thought, "Oh boy, a member of the First Presidency wouldn't be calling me about a regular temple missionary calling." President Eyring said, "Brother Hinckley, I have a different calling for you. Will you accept it?" He hadn't even told Clark what the calling would be! Clark accepted the calling, of course, and they ended up in Tijuana.

One more thing. I told Oskar (one of Lizzie's boys) that I wanted to show him some photos from our quick trip to visit the Tijuana Temple. Five minutes later he came back into the room and asked, "Can I see the photos of the Iguana Temple now?"

We had to stand in line for 90 minutes to get back into the United States. And we were told that's a fairly short wait time!

Grandpa reading to his grandsons.

Playing with Magnus

We sure loved our short trip. Thank you, Lizzie and Dan (and boys), for showing us a good time. Can't wait to do it again!

With Karsten and Magnus

"I love Christmas!"

Yesterday morning Dad and I woke up at 2:00 AM to drive back to San Diego Airport for our return trip to Utah. Needless to say, I was very grateful to NOT set my alarm this morning.

Okay, now it's time for a few random photos. Sara (my sister), Jarem (her husband), and their kids visited our home last week. I went downstairs to look for something and found Denali (their only girl) wearing this slingshot. Hilarious. It seems she's in that "dressing-up" phase of a young girl's life. She wants to wear everything.