Over the River and Through the Woods, Just Not at Thanksgiving Time

In September, I took the chance to go visit Grandma in Idaho for a few days in order to work some more on Grandpa's book. It's been in the works for about 2 years now, and lots of people have had their hands in the pie, so I figured it would be good to try to knock it out finally, if possible.

On the way up, I stopped by the Logan Temple, which I've never been to before. I was surprised by how small it really was. I'd envisioned something much larger from pictures, but considering the resources available to the pioneers, I shouldn't have been surprised. I also found that temple had a very unusual layout inside, such as I've never seen before. This no doubt occurred when it went from doing live sessions to movie sessions, but I've seen other temples, like the Idaho Falls Temple, that seemed to manage that transition better.

Stopping for the session put me in at Grandma's new condo much later than I'd originally planned. I thought it would be kind of difficult for me, to see her new place. I did have rather a pang of sadness as I passed the old house looking for the condo. Then I managed to get quite lost before I finally found the right place. (Thanks, Google!) When I eventually found it, I discovered that my fears had been unfounded. Grandma's new home is wonderful, still with plenty of familiar touches, and I realized that what made the old place feel special was Grandma far more than anything else. Wherever she is, she can't help but bring the cherished feelings of youth I've associated with her old home.

I only had a few days to spend in Idaho, but during that time I was able to spend some good time with not just Grandma, but also Skye and Lance's family as well. I made some headway on the book as well as came up with a plan of attack for completing it, though there's still plenty to do, unfortunately.

The best part was getting to talk with my Grandma for long periods, especially since I was still keeping up a training schedule of walking for Trek, which Grandma mostly did with me. One of the memorable stories she told me was about how the first counselor in her ward shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor stood up in sacrament and announced that the Japanese members were no longer welcome in the ward. With a good sized Japanese population in the area, this meant Grandma lost the company of a number of her friends, which she was quite sad about. She also remembers hearing her parents talking about how wrong that reaction to the event was. She doesn't know if her parent's expressed publicly their disapproval of the action, but it's good to know that my great-grandparents were people who could see the importance of treating others as God would.

Grandma also mentioned that there was a German POW camp in Tautphaus Park in IF when she was a girl. Local people would go there to conscript workers for the farms for a few days. At the end of the war, all the prisoners were pretty quickly shipped back to Germany. It's interesting to think how the war impacted even far-flung areas like Idaho.

Before I left on Saturday, Grandma asked me to help her pick the remaining fruit on her trees at the old house. I, of course, agreed. It was pleasant to engage in such a quintessential fall activity, though, don't get me wrong, it was definitely hard work climbing those trees and straining to reach the various fruits. In all, we managed to gather about a bushel and a half or so of plums and apples.  Grandma even let me take some of the fresh harvest home, which was fun. It's not often I get to eat fruit I've directly picked from the tree!

On my way home, I had planned to stop for a session at the Ogden Temple, which I've also never been to. Because I got out so late, I didn't get to Ogden until quite late. I knew there was a long ward hike for Trek prep planned for the next day, so I was conflicted about whether I should scrap my plans or stick with them. In the end, I just got off the highway and the decision was made.

I'm so glad I didn't just continue home, because I really loved going to the Ogden Temple. It is a fabulously beautiful place, and I had a great experience there. It really is one of the most gorgeous temples I've been too. I couldn't help but think of how it has gone from being one of my least favorite designed temples to one of my favorite. And yet, all the time, it has been performing the same work. Now, it simply has a greater capacity to perform that work after extensive renovation.

It is much the same with people, I think, It doesn't do to judge people based on the outward appearances, not just physically, but also just those initial surface judgments of personality. Instead, we must learn to see the potential within them as Christ does, then help facilitate his renovation of each of us, magnifying both our eternal beauty and practicality. The incredible and unique Celestial Room was one of my favorite parts of the temple, and in much the same way, most of the best things in people are nestled safely in their innermost parts. They can only be accessed after devoting sustained, quality time and consecrated effort.

As predicted, my detour put me getting home quite late, so the next morning, I simply didn't feel up to the 7:00 AM ward hike, though I'd set my alarm for it. As it happened, when I did get up around 8:30, I found I had a text from my good friend, Amy, in the ward. She'd also missed the ward hike, and wanted to see if I was interested in doing a different hike later. I immediately texted her back that I was indeed interested, and she said she needed to leave in about half an hour to be back in time for responsibilities involving the Women's General Broadcast that evening. The time frame suited me, so before long, we were heading up AF canyon.

We ended up doing the Silver Lake Trail up past Tibble Fork. Amy had started that trail a few weeks earlier with one of her roommates, but they had had to turn back part way and hadn't actually reached the lake. We made our way up in pretty good time. It was quite delightful to enjoy the lovely fall scenery and great company. Amy is one of my favorite people here. In fact, I consider her version 2.0 of me. She is smart, insightful, talented, works in Marketing, and went to BYU-Idaho like me, but she's also much more Christlike than I am. I can think of few people who love and serve as completely and naturally as Amy does. Spending time with such a high-caliber person is a privilege I don't take for granted, so I was very pleased with the chance to spend time with her.

One thing she mentioned on the trail was a friend of hers who talked about her "sacred language," which for this person, was her mission language. That friend had described how in her mission language, she only knew uplifting positive words, so it was natural for her to communicate with God in the language, and also served to positively influence her thoughts when she thought of others in that language. I thought it was an interesting idea, but both Amy and I served English-speaking missions here in the states, so we discussed how we can and should make our native language a sacred language to us, by focusing on the positive and uplifting things around us and eliminating destructive influences in our thoughts.

It was fun when we finally got to Silver Lake, which is quite a lovely little alpine lake. We explored around it and grabbed some pictures, then Amy pulled out a sling-shot she had brought and we had fun shooting rocks into the lake. Some, we just tried to get as far as we could, and others we worked to skip as many times as we could. It was pretty awesome. I've never used a sling-shot before, and I found it to be a simple, cheap weapon I could actually get behind. I don't have much of a fondness for  handling guns for a number of reasons, number one of which is that I don't really trust myself with them, though cost and other concerns certainly come in as well. With a slingshot, ammo is free, you can still enjoy activities like target shooting, and you're unlikely to accidentally kill someone, though you could inflict some serious damage under certain circumstances.

After having some fun, we quickly made our way back. Fortunately, we were still in plenty of time to get to the Women's Broadcast, which was excellent. I think it was better than we've had for quite awhile, though I'd still like to see Women's Broadcast become more hard-hitting like Priesthood Session is. Overall, it was a wonderful week in which I was blessed to have some great experiences with amazing and admirable people!