Heaven and Earth

Everything I needed to put my purse back together was in my mail basket when I got home last night. A new drivers license and checkbooks were there along with a few bonuses like compensation for some of the odd jobs I have taken reviewing books. All the credit cards had come a couple of weeks before going back to Utah and I was able to get my new Temple recommend the night before I left. I have been pulled over twice (It was okay because I wasn't doing anything wrong. I guess the cops just thought I was hot and wanted to chat or something.) and I went a long time without shopping after the borrowed cash to get me back to Merced had run out, and it has been over a month since I have gone to the temple. All said, I have missed the temple recommend the most.

Temples started making sense to me when I learned the symbol for them. It is a circle inside of a square. The circle represents heaven or the eternities and the square represents the earth. The two shapes meet up at four points, which means that a temple is a place where heaven and earth meet. Our bodies are temples because they are from the earth and house our spirits which are from heaven. Our homes are temples because the most sacred things, like birth, death, and life take place in them. And of course there are temples which prepare us to go back to God someday, where the living do work for the dead to prepare them to meet God as well. I think that temples are also a bit like heaven and earth meeting up because people are on their best behavior there and so kind.

When I volunteered in the Atlanta temple, I felt a little bit like I had the responsibilities of an angel. It was honestly a bit weird to feel so much love for absolute strangers. I kind of felt protective and like I wanted to help them however I could. I haven't felt exactly that way at any other time. I don't have the time to volunteer at the Fresno temple right now, but I love to go as a patron. I see the same sort of caring and intensity on the faces of the volunteers who are there. When I leave, I feel like I take a bit of heaven with me.

I am so eager to go again now that I have a new recommend. I have thought of the first two men in England who were baptized and how they raced to the water to decide who would get to be the very first. I have also thought of our Canadian ancestors who believed that the gospel of Jesus Christ was not on the earth and waited intently for it to be restored. They were finally convinced that it had been by Parley Pratt. I don't think I can really understand their excitement as they received the gospel, but as I anticipate the temple, I think perhaps a bit of their influence may escape the heavens, find its way to earth and give me a little sense of the gratitude and excitement they felt.