Temple Bucket List

A goal

without

a plan

is just

a wish

I have had a goal since my freshman year of college (2007) to visit every temple in Utah. All the temples between Provo and Logan were easy. I visited those in just a couple months. However, the outlying ones, Vernal, Manti, St. George, and Monticello, have been a little more difficult. Finally I realized something about goals.

If you make them happen, they do.

It just takes a little planning, a little determination, maybe a little time and money, but once you decide to just do it, it actually happens. So far this summer, I've accomplished more towards this goal than I have in the last six years. Granted, I was out of the country for one and a half of those last six years, but the point is, I let six years go by without making any progress toward a goal that took less than a few months when I actually buckled down.
So here's my progress:
I finally went to Vernal with my family. We visited all the dinosaur sites and made a weekend of it.

I finally went to Manti. I just grabbed Aubrie, Mary, and Chanel and drove down there. I don't know why it's taken me so long to get to Manti. I've lived in Provo for several years, and Manti is only an hour and a half away. I've been to Manti 3 times to see the pageant, but never had the opportunity to go inside.

It was such a beautiful day. I had a handful of family names that I helped my mom find and prepare for the temple. They were some of my German ancestors. My friends and I took the names to Manti and spent SEVEN hours in the temple. We did all the baptisms, confirmations, and initiatories for all of the women I had, then the endowment for four of them, and we were also able to do some sealings for Aubrie's family. It was a long day, but so rewarding to be able to spend a day performing every ordinance in sequence. I absolutely love the Manti temple. My mom has always said that the Spirit is stronger there, and I thought she just said that because that's where she was sealed to my dad. Well, it's true!
Maybe it is because that is where my eternal family began, but the Spirit there was stronger than I've ever felt it. It is the most beautiful temple I've ever been in. It's a true pioneer temple. I felt like I walked in just after it had been dedicated. So beautiful. (I also got to see the sealing room where my parents were sealed, and let me tell you, they must have spent six of the seven years that it took to build the Manti Temple just decorating that room.)

Then, just a few weeks after we went to Manti, Aubrie and I took a mid-week adventure/road trip down to St. George. We packed in hiking and letterboxing in Snow Canyon and all over town, Mary Poppins at the Tuachan theatre, and Love's Labour's Lost at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. But the highlight of the trip was the St. George Temple. We did initiatories and an some more endowments for my German ancestors, and it was wonderful.

So, now all I have left is the Monticello Temple (Until the Cedar City Temple is built and we'll have to take another trip down to Dixie). We planned to take a weekend and go to Monticello and then go camping in Moab, but we ran out of time before school started, so it will have to wait till I get a little break. But hey, I think I made some good progress this summer.