While We Are Waiting: Temples!

I love the temple.  When I first learned of the possibility of us moving to China in December 2019, one of my first questions was "How can I leave the temple?"  That question was answered in part during the closure of temples in 2020. However, when the joint venture was signed and Tom was officially offered the position in China in November 2020, I began fasting and praying that I would be able to attend the temple just once before we left.  Our original flights were for July 7, 2021 and just a few weeks before that, our temple opened up and miraculously we were able to get 2 appointments for baptisms and 4 other appointments for Tom and I before our departure date.  I can't express my deep gratitude for those 6 precious appointments.  Then when we didn't obtain a visa in time for those flights and access to nearby temples was given, I took up a new hobby.  Temple scheduling.  The girls teased me it was a bit of an obsessed hobby; but since we will go without temple attendance for so long, I have had a great desire to fill our tanks to overflowing.  And with a cleared schedule so we would be ready to leave whenever the visas were given, we could take most any appointment I found available.  So we have gone. The girls have done baptisms 60 times.  I have been able to go 162 times. It has been a beautiful, revelatory, and sacred experience.  I will cherish it my entire life.  We have been able to do work in every temple in Utah and a few in Idaho.  Here is a sampling:

Temples clockwise from top left:  Payson, Bountiful, Manti, Draper, Jordan River, Logan

Top left:  Ogden, Draper, Jordan River, Logan, Mid section:  Manti, Mount Timpanogos, Oquirrih Mountain, Jordan River; Bottom:  Payson, Provo, Provo City Center, Vernal.  

One story:  Back in September, I had been trying to schedule baptisms for the girls in Draper for several weeks.  One morning I had an appointment for initiatories in Draper and as I was driving home, the thought came to me to go home and try once again for the Draper temple.  I did and there was an appointment in one hour!  I scheduled it and told the girls to get ready!  As we served there, I mentioned to a sister that we were moving to China and trying to get to the temple as much as possible and I expressed how thankful I was to get an appointment to the Draper temple.  She told the coordinator and later he invited us to come back every Friday during their shift and they would work us in (at that time, their temple only scheduled one appointment per hour where other temples schedule 16 patrons an hour, so he could safely make that allowance for us).  We took him up on that offer, and on our last visit there before their lengthy closure, the door opened wide by one of the workers and he said "Welcome Waddoups' family"!  I told the girls that that was not likely to ever happen again!  

I've had many people ask me how I have managed all of the uncertainty of not knowing if/when we were moving to China.  Indeed every week since April 2021 has begun with a statement such as "At the end of this week we'll know more."  However, this unknown has not plagued me.  Elder Bednar explained why in October 2021 conference.  He said that 'faith, courage, perspective, persistence and joy that extend far beyond mortal capacity and that only God could provide" comes to those armed with power from covenants. I truly have been given greater mortal capacity to navigate the uncertainty.  When people have asked me how I *really* am doing with all of the unknown, my response has been "The temples are open!" The uncertainty has been (and still is daunting), but there truly is power in my temple covenants and I'm in deep gratitude to have the opportunity to liberally draw from it.