Tender Mercies At The Temple

This morning we woke up and had a lazy Saturday morning.  Then I got cleaned up and took Autumn over to Mom & Dad’s.  Dad had gone for a bike ride in the Cotton Patch Challenge and rode 63 miles, so Mom watched Autumn for me while I went to the temple.  I missed the 10:30 session by 2 minutes, so I just sat in the chapel and read the scriptures for my lesson tomorrow, which is about Elijah & how he performed a miracle before the priests of Baal.  I was able to be in a session (just by chance) with the whole Jones family.  They just got back on Thursday from picking up their youngest son from his mission in Brazil & their youngest daughter was getting her endowments for the first time.  It was neat to see all of them together, and even made me a little teary-eyed.  I want that someday…to be in the temple w/ my whole family.

I had three people on my mind that I was thinking/praying about.  One was Autumn, one was Nathan & one was Rufio.  All three of the things I was thinking about for those people were addressed and I felt such peace and happiness.  It also helped me to remember that Heavenly Father knows me personally b/c I am His child and that He is aware of my joys and sorrows and concerns and triumphs.  I was reminded of how He knows me individually b/c of how my prayer for those 3 people was answered in the temple.  I LOVE going to the temple and getting to leave the cares and worries of the world outside the doors of the temple.  I always feel refreshed and recharged when I leave.  Those problems that I leave at the doors of the temple are still there for me to pick up when I leave, but they don’t seem as heavy or burdensome.  I’m so thankful that I’ve been able to be 100% on my goal of going once a month so far.  I couldn’t do that w/out Mom being  willing to watch Autumn for me & I appreciate her so much.

After the temple, I went over to the LDS bookstore to get a few pictures of some temples to put one in Autumn’s room and one in my room.  They didn’t have a very big selection, but I found some other pictures by Simon Dewey that I just LOVED.  My favorite story of the Savior & women in the scriptures is the woman w/the issue of blood, so I just had to have this picture and was happy to discover it was only $2.

After leaving there, I stopped at Costco to get some gas, but couldn’t find my Costco card so I had to go somewhere else.  I stopped at WalMart to return the Redbox movies we rented last night and then to get some anti-freeze for my car b/c it’s all out and since my car burns so much oil I never get oil changes, I just add oil once a month.  This morning when I checked, I was low on anti-freeze and needed to put more in.  I also got some cheap frames for my 5x7 Simon Dewey pictures and found some shorts for Autumn for next summer for only $2 each!  I’d much rather buy them a little big now for next summer on clearance than have to buy them next summer for $5 or $7 each!

I stopped and got Chipotle for lunch since that’s what Mom wanted and right when I got to their house Dad got home from his bike ride and Nick got off of work, so we sat down and ate together.  Autumn was taking a nap and I went in to kiss her sweet little cheek and she woke up.  I just love her beyond what I am able to express in words and am so blessed to call her mine.

After waking up and being a little more alert, she wanted to put on the new video she discovered in a cabinet we had forgotten about that had movies.  She wanted to watch Beauty & The Beast Christmas.  She brought Dad a pen & a piece of paper and asked him to draw her a picture of the Beast.  If you look closely at the picture, you can see part of his drawing.

Mom got an Amazon kindle and was trying to figure out how to download some free books that came with it.  She got one on there and I started reading it just to see if it worked right.  I read this first page and thought, “Uh, oh!  This is going to be a naughty book that we’ll have to delete.”  However, it’s  not what you expect it’s going to be.  I ended up getting addicted to reading the book and spent the rest of the evening reading the book until Mom forced me to stop so I could take Autumn home and put her to bed at 9:30.  I stayed up until 1:15 b/c I had to finish the book.  It’s called The Pawn and was really really good.  It’s a little gruesome b/c it’s a murder mystery book but has so many unexpected twists and turns.  SO GOOD!  The kindle is so cool and I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it is to read a book on it.  It doesn’t look like a computer screen at all like I thought it would.