I'm Going There Someday

On Saturday, June 7th, we were able to take Annie to the Fresno Temple and have her sealed to our family for eternity. What an amazing day. I am kicking myself for not taking any photo's on my phone of our family- I hired a photographer to come to the temple and take our pictures, so family pictures will come when our photographer gets them to us.

What a perfect day for our family. It was beautiful and sweet. While I was in the temple I started crying, I didn't think I would cry- I'm not an overly emotional person in general, but I did cry! I was just so grateful to my loving father in heaven who helped us every step of the way to get to that point. This little girl is now ours FOREVER. For Eternity. For All time! And I wouldn't want it any other way. 

...I was asked to teach a workshop for the activity day girls in our stake, last month. The subject of my workshop was "Families are Forever".  I was super excited to work with the girls on this subject, one of my favorite subjects of all time. I have know from the time I was a little girl how important it is to be a family not just for time, but for all eternity.  So, while I was preparing for the workshop, I tried to decide how best to present this to the girls. I prayed a lot and went over every lesson and talk I could find about forever families and eternal families. In the end, I decided that I would focus on the "eternity" part for a good portion of the class. I don't know how many of these girls really realize how long eternity is and how short this earthly life really is.  So I punched out a 1" circle of cardstock and I brought a ball of twine. I held up the cardstock circle for all the girls to see. I told them that this circle represents our earth life- our time here on earth from birth to death. I asked them what eternity meant to them (in all the classes someone inevitably said "to infinity and beyond"....)  I then pulled out a ball of twine, about 200 feet long and had 2 girls come up and hold up some of the twine about 6 feet across the front of the room, and then I taped the circle onto the twine. I told the girls that I had been trying to figure out how long eternity really was and I asked them if they thought that this piece of twine with the circle on it was a good representation of how long eternity is.  Some said "yes", but most said "no".  I then called another girl up and had her stand about 5 feet away from the other girl and extended the ball of twine to her- is this how long eternity is?  Then I brought up another girl and had her stand a few feet away and extended the ball of twine to her... "is this how long eternity is? ".  I continued this all the way around the primary room and by the end, we had circled all the way around the primary room and every girl (and mom) were standing up around the perimeter of the room holding onto the  twine. I continued asking them each time I added a girl to the circle if this length of twin represented eternity.   When we FINALLY made it back to the front of the room and I had 2 girls standing next to each other, each holding onto one end of the twine, I asked if NOW we had a good representation of how long eternity is- most said "Yes"!  I said "No"!    The girls were stumped.  I then went on to talk about how eternity has no beginning and no end.... I tied the 2 ends of the string together and then I stood in the middle of the circle and went around and around and around and around and said THIS is eternity- no beginning and no end and This 1" circle represents our life and this (again, turning in circles pointing to the twine all around this enormous room with 30-50 girls all standing and holding this twine) represents eternity. I then asked... who wants to be with their mom and dad or their family for just this short little circle of time and the rest of this time (circling around the room again and again) NOT be with our families?   I did a lot of theatrics and actually talked a lot with the girls and asked a lot of questions to keep them involved and understanding each step of the way.  It was a big hit. I then went on to talk about families and how each of our families are different and unique, but how we can be with our families FOREVER no matter what our family is made of, or how unique it is.  I then talked about Max and Annie and told the kids how I am thankful for temples and that Max and Annie wouldn't be mine just for this life, for this little circle of time on our twine, but forever and ever (again, circling around and around).   It was pretty emotional and I hope that the girls really grasped that eternity is a pretty long time. We used a lot from "a proclamation to the family" and I used some talks from general conference and tied it all together. I had a craft for them to do at the end, tying eternity and families and love together.  It was very powerful and the perfect subject for me as we were preparing to take our last child to the temple. 

...Having that talk fresh on my mind really made me think a lot about how important the temple is and how blessed I am to be sealed to my family- to my husband (my best friend and the most amazing man I know) and my children, each of them-  I am thankful to a loving heavenly father who is so fair and just that he would never ask me to have a forever family and not provide a way for me to be with my children who were born to another mother before they were mine. He loves me and doesn't care how my family is formed (adoption or not) he knows that these kids are every bit as much mine and the ones who were born to me. They are my babies and He would never ask me to be separated from them after this life. These kids are mine forever. And I am thankful that we have temples and that we can take our families there and make sure to continue this life into the eternities.