California Trip Part 3: Tuscon and Home Again

We returned to Steve and Merina's house quite late at night after arriving from Catalina. We knew that we'd have a long drive the next day to get to the home of Paul's grandma in Tuscon. I hadn't realized that going to Catalina would pretty much eat up all our time in California, and I'd really been looking forward to going to the San Diego temple. I've done baptisms there before, but I've always loved the design of that temple and was eager to go back now that I'm endowed. It looked like maybe we wouldn't make it there on this trip, but Dad said that as long as we could get in on the first session, we should be okay. That was good news, but it meant not getting a lot of sleep that night. Bright and early, Dad and I made our way to the temple while Mom, Paul, and Marinda got some needed rest and prepared to leave.

Because it was quite early and a holiday (New Year's Eve) to boot, our session was pretty small. As a result, Dad and I were asked to be the witnesses. It was my first time serving as a witness, which felt like an honor to me while at the same time being intimidating. Perhaps it may not seem like that big a deal to most, but I think there is more to it than is commonly believed. Typically, it is seen as something you do for that one session of a couple hours and then you are done. I, however, believe that there is an eternal significance to serving as a witness. I would not be at all surprised if witnesses are asked to participate to some extent or another in a soul's final judgement. If the ordinances have been properly kept, they can witness for the person, and if not, they can witness against.

Here are the outer temple doors where the
 Seal of Melchizedek is repeated a lot.

I won't go much farther into it, but I think that studying the law of witnesses in the scriptures can be very instructive on this subject. There are many references to witnesses to consider. A careful study can yield insight to the blessing of being a faithful witness. We are also repeatedly warned of the eternal consequences of being a false witness. I believe that there is so much emphasis placed on this principle because it is one of the founding laws of the Celestial Kingdom. True witnesses allow Zion to grow and flourish in a mutually supportive society while false witnesses quickly tear any society apart. With that understanding, it makes more sense that I was both excited and apprehensive about excepting that responsibility to around 20 or 30 of God's children!

I really did enjoy seeing the interior of the San Diego Temple. There were some beautiful touches, The two-story Celestial Room is both unique and beautiful as is the upper atrium around which the sealing rooms are arranged. Like many other elements in that temple, the atrium is formed in the star shape of the Seal of Melchizedek. I really like that this design element is so ubiquitous in that temple, both inside and out.

It does seem like some of the interior space hasn't been especially well used, however. In one of the main spire sections, for example, there is nothing but a wide spiral staircase surrounded by a lot of empty space. There are certain advantages to that, I suppose, but it seems like kind of a waste. I would have rather seen the Celestial Room expanded significantly, more session rooms added, etc. I guess the wasted space just isn't my cup of tea!

Dad decided to call Mom from the dressing room to see if he had time to do some initiatories before we had to get back. Since I can't go in the men's dressing room, I had no idea what the result of that communication was, so I just went outside to wait either way. As it turned out, he did do some initiatories, so I was waiting for probably around 45 minutes. While waiting, I walked around the temple, took some pictures, and generally people watched.

I talked to a couple of sisters while waiting. They said that they typically spent a few hours talking to the people on the temple grounds each week, though that temple has no visitors center. I eventually sat in the lobby, and while I was there, a couple of female students from Taiwan came in and just said they were interested in the temple and decided to see what it was all about. A temple worker helped to explain some things and to try to connect them with the missionaries, so I guess it happens at least reasonably often that people come in curious about the place.

Overall, while the exterior architecture is quite possibly my favorite of all temples, the interior is kind of underwhelming in comparison. It certainly has nothing new temples like Payson, City Center, Ogden, etc. The best combo of both a striking exterior and interior is, in my opinion, the Salt Lake Temple. I know that I have some bias in that, since it was my mission temple, but it deserves all the accolades that it gets in so many ways.

Though I had to wait for quite awhile, I was glad that Dad was able to get some more initiatories done. While it would have been nice to do some myself, I was more than satisfied that my male names were progressing. I know that I can take care of female names in a timely fashion myself, but I'm constantly waiting on male names. A lot of of work in my temple file is frozen for extended periods waiting on different male names to be completed. Since I have no direct control over how quickly those are finished, I'm always pleased to personally see that they are moving forward as much as possible. Dad did a good job of getting plenty done while he was around the temples for Christmas, but it's more difficult when the temple is hours away from them at home.

Here's some of Merina's cute yard space I snapped just before we left.

Mom, Marinda, and Paul were finalizing packing and such went we got back to Steve and Merina's. After loading everything up, we said our goodbyes and hit the road. It would have been nice to have had more time to spend with the Smith's but I was glad for the time we did get. It's always fun to spend time with them. The rest of that day was mostly spent driving. We went through some interesting terrain while traveling to Tuscon. It was certainly much more exciting that the road from Utah to California, at any rate!

When we got to Tuscon, we stopped at a grocery store long enough to fulfill our New Year's tradition of trying unusual or more expensive foods. We shared those acquisitions with a few of Paul's extended family while we waited for his Grandma to arrive. She'd spent her Christmas with his family in Virginia and flew back on New Year's Eve. She got home from the airport perhaps an hour or so after we got there. So while it wasn't the most orthodox New Year's Eve celebration, it was overall an interesting enough day for us all.

The next day, we were better able to get a feel for the terrain of the area. It was quite an interesting place, very much in the traditional wild west vein you grow up picturing. There was little vegetation besides a million cacti. We got quite a good eyeful of the cacti as we drove through some of Saguaro National Park on the way to visit the Arizona-Sonora Dessert Museum. Basically, down there, the saguaros are like trees in other places. They cover whole mountains and plains. It is rather a curious, though interesting sight. It was definitely different than anything I've ever seen before!

The Dessert Museum is basically just a zoo of critters you'd find in the dessert. There were a ton of rattlesnakes, of course (yuck). There were also more cuddly creatures like beavers, otters, and coati among others. Some of the animals sat between the cuddly and yuck categories, like the various big cats, javelina, and coyote. It was enjoyable to see the various animals. We even got to see an interesting bird show there where they had various raptors flying around overhead. That was probably my favorite part of that stop.

After the museum, we returned to Paul's grandma's house in time to join a gathering of his extended family. We ate dinner with them and played a few different games. One of them was a big card game tournament that they called Mormon Bridge. I don't remember much about it except that there was some kind of bidding, and that I wasn't particularly great at it! We also did this simple game where you have people surround a table and then place a ping-pong ball in the middle. Everyone then tries to blow the ball off the table on the opposite side with the people divided into 2 teams based on positions around the table. It was a really simple game conceptually, but was quite fun in spite of that.

In the end, though I saw some interesting things in Arizona, I was pretty miserable the entire time I was there. I won't go into it too much, but basically I felt a suffocating amount of pressure from all sides in the entire scenario there, and I felt entirely unable to deliver upon what was expected of me. While no one actively tried to put me in that position, in fact, everyone was extremely kind, the unfortunate circumstances of the whole thing just made me feel completely unnatural and embattled the entire time, as much as I tried to fight that feeling. I felt like I was in a position where I was doomed to failure and the causing of general disappointment.

Needless to say, those feelings combined into one of the most demoralizing experiences I've been though in a long time, and though I was grateful for all the kindness Paul's family showed, I was extremely relieved to get out of Tuscon when the time came, in that I finally got a respite from my own demons if nothing else.

Some of the terrain in the Navajo Reservation area. This was the view from where we stopped to buy ornaments.

On the way home, we traveled through Dad's old mission area in the Navajo Indian Reservation covering the Four Corners region. It was fun seeing the hogans there and getting a feeling for the area in general. We stopped for gas while there and had fun checking out a little trading post type store across the way. They even had some newspapers and such written in both English and Navajo there. We also listened to a local radio station as we traveled through the area which had people speaking Navajo. We saw several local women selling handmade wares along the road and stopped long enough to buy some Christmas ornaments made of horsehair pottery. One of the ladies was an LDS convert of some years, so of course, Dad was happy to help support her work.

We traveled through the Lake Powell area as well on our way back, so we also got to see some unfamiliar terrain through all that trip back until we got farther north and closer to home. After our return, we had just enough time to enjoy a last bit of time with the whole family in Utah before Mom and Dad had to start their trip back to Virginia.

It was sad to see them go, but I was glad we had the chance to see a lot of them over the Christmas season this year and to do a number of interesting things along the way. After all the novelty, it was more challenging to get back into the regular swing of things, but I suppose that is always the way of it!