Arizona Reunion Part 1: Utah to the Grand Canyon

I'm back-tracking a bit this week to the family reunion that took place down in Arizona back in June. It was really delightful, as usual, and gave me a chance to see some awesome new things in addition to spending time with people I love.

Mom and Dad came out about a week early to spend some time with all us kids before the larger reunion. We all did a Memorial Day BBQ with them on Monday, then I went and saw Love and Friendship, a Jane Austen movie, with them on Tuesday. The movie was decent, but the most fun part about it for me was that we got luxury recliner seats at the movie theater, which I've never seen before. They were basically just really nice, comfortable chairs that made watching the movie like watching a movie at home, except that your screen is way bigger!

On Wednesday, I went with Mom and Dad to the Provo City Center Temple and we did two sessions. That was nice, but based off the timing, I ended up not getting dinner because I had to teach the family history Institute class that night. The class went quite well, though, so it turned out fine. Can't remember doing anything of note on Thursday, then on Friday, Grandma came down from Idaho with Sophie and we all went out to eat together.

Mom, Paul, and Marinda left to go down to Arizona with Grandma and Sophie early on Saturday, the first day we had the rental homes open. I was committed to running another all-day temple day for the ward, so I needed to be in town on Saturday. Dad was sticking around too in order to bring me down with him, so he also came along for the temple day.

Sadly, this all-day temple day had a few drawbacks compared to previous times we've done it. One of those was that we didn't end up having any of the bishopric there. The Lemons, who have always come on previous occasions, were out-of-town, unfortunately. Bro. Birkeland always works on Saturdays and Bro. McDonald, who was supposed to attend, had family stuff come up. The second big downside was that we had much lower attendance than ever before. Only 9 were there at some point during the day, and there were only 4 of us that stuck through everything.

On the bright side, we were able to get through the Baptistry especially in record time. I was glad that Dad came along so we did have a mature Prieshood representative in the absence of the bishopric. He was helpful in the baptistry in that he could baptize and help set apart and was especially usuful for sealings as we had a male shortage. Getting out of the baptistry quickly put us ahead of the schedule I'd laid out for everyone in advance, so we managed to get initiatories done as well before the time I'd set out as lunch.

I always have a favorite moment of the day from each of these all-day temple days, the first time being doing baptisms and the second time doing sealings. This time, I was surprised that my favorite moment actually ended up being not doing ordinances, but taking time for lunch instead. Since we were ahead of schedule, I figured we'd just get more initiatories done, completing a set both before and after lunch. However, as I talked with the other three long-haulers during lunch, I found that my original concern with gettting as many ordinances done as possible just ebbed away in favor of spending some extra quality time with those few ward members.

I could feel a real connection between us all as we talked about various things. One person I knew quite well, another I knew pretty well, and the last I didn't know much at all. As everyone shared various things about themselves, I felt much closer to all of them, with a real concern about each of their lives. At the same time, I felt an increased appreciation for them each individually. As those feelings of Zion came to me in conversation, I realized that continuing to build upon that in that moment was more valuable than getting a bit of extra temple work done. It took me by surprise, but that time was the defining moment of the day for me, and I'm glad I didn't have such tunnel vision that I couldn't appreciate it. Really, it is that feeling of connection, of Zion, that really sticks with me every time. Though it always comes in a different instance, you can't help but feel it after spending a lot of time in the temple with people, and it is always very striking.

Doing sealings was also notable in a few ways. Our RS president, Cassidy, had only been endowed for a couple of months, so this was her first time going through everything during the ward temple day. As it turned out, she'd never done any sealings at all before that day, so it was her first exposure to that ceremony. She was kind of hesitant about it all the way along, but I convinced her it was a good thing to do, so she did end up participating, though only as a daughter. She decided that she didn't want to do any couple sealings until she was sealed herself, so she didn't do any of those. It wasn't a decision I would have made, but I respected her agency in the matter. As it turns out, she's now engaged and will be married in September, so she won't have too long to wait for that experience as well. Still, I think it was good that she was able to hear and think about the sealing ordinance before experiencing it for herself.

We had another sister who came and joined us for just sealings. She was forgotten by the sealer for most of the sealing time, and only did one set of sealings at the very end after we reminded the sealer that she hadn't been able to participate yet. I knew that this sister has some pretty serious anxiety problems and other mental health struggles, but it was only later that I learned how much they'd been in play that day. She'd taken all day to talk herself into coming at all, and was pretty worked up about it all even when she did make it to the temple. Apparently, this was her first time back to the temple in a lot of months, because it is triggers some of her anxiety problems. Being able to simply sit and observe for most of the time turned out to be very helpful for her as it gave her time to calm herself and to let the Spirit work upon her. Then, having the chance to do some work at the end herself when she was prepared pushed her in important ways, yet didn't overwhelm her. Though there are many things that we don't understand in a moment, the Lord truly is in charge and can arrange things as is needed for the blessing of His individual children.

On Sunday, Dad and I attended sacrament in my ward before heading out to get on the road for Arizona. On the way down, we drove by the Monticello temple, so that was fun to see, though it is tiny. We passed by Mexican Hat rock and were able to pick it out without any prompting because it so distinctly looks like someone wearing a sombrero. After Mexican Hat, we drove through an edge of the Navajo reservation where my dad served his mission, though we were on the side he'd never been to.We also passed a lot of other interesting territory that I haven't seen before. I like to see new scenery, so that was enjoyable. I haven't spent so much time with just my dad in a long time, so that opened up some unique opportunities. I'm quite a bit like my dad, but have some key differences too.

Because he thinks in similar patterns to me (really the opposite of that), but has a different body of experience, education, etc. he is able to help me see important things from a different perspective that is helpful for re-framing my own thoughts. Yet, there are also times that he makes unjustified assumptions, in my opinion, based on his own life and perspective that I don't believe are warranted in my unique situation. It's always pretty hard to change someone else's erroneous assumptions, so sometimes this leaves me feeling misunderstood and misjudged, which is demoralizing. Fortunately, those moments were the exception rather than the norm on this trip, so it was overall a positive experience, and I'm really glad I didn't have to drive myself down alone just because I couldn't go on the day most were arriving.

It was, of course, great to see everyone again. We just had a bit of time for a bit of catch-up with some of the extended family on Sunday as we arrived pretty late. On Monday, we all went and rode the chair-lift at Snowbowl resort. That was fun, because it took us right up to the top of the saddle of Humphreys Peak, the tallest mountain in Arizona. While up there, we talked to a Navajo guide that was at the top for quite awhile. He told us that hiking wasn't allowed up there without special permit because it is in the limited habitat of San Francisco Groundsel, an endangered plant that only grows on those two peaks where we were. Dad compared a few notes about Navajo things with him and he filled us in on some interesting things, like the fact that fry bread is somewhat controversial on the res these days because many consider it "prison food" because it was developed when the government stuck the Navajos somewhere in Oklahoma and gave them basically nothing to eat besides some flour and lard. It was interesting talking to him and seeing the views, even though we couldn't go far to explore the top.

The way down was even better than going up because we were looking out upon the beautiful vista the whole time. It's been awhile since I rode a ski lift, so it was fun enjoying that. Unfortunately, there were several family members, like Paul and Marinda, who got pretty significant burns there because the sun is more intense as you go higher and they hadn't properly sunscreened certain areas, like the tops of their legs.

After that, we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument. That was an interesting place that housed a cliff-dwelling tribe from about 600 BC-1400 AD. You could see remains of their homes built into the overhangs scattered all around the canyon. They've cataloged over 100 dwellings in the canyon and apparently still find more. It's interesting to think about how those people managed to survive in such an unforgiving environment. I don't like heights, so I would have never cut it in a cliff-dwelling society. These ruins were nothing compared to what we later saw at Mesa Verde, but having never seen such dwellings before, we all found them very interesting. I also like seeing some of the artifacts that were found there, though most of the major ruins had been looted by tourists in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The next day, everyone who was coming had arrived, so we hit the big attraction of the Flagstaff area, the Grand Canyon. It was an impressive sight, seeing that huge expanse of carved land, but I found it rather underwhelming. It's build up to be so fabulous, but it didn't compare with many of the national parks I've been able to visit. That said, I think it would have been somewhat more awe-inspiring had we been able to go down into the canyon more. I can only imagine that it appears much more impressive from the bottom than from the top in many ways.

As our time there was limited, we just did some hiking around the rim before taking a shuttle to access a number of viewpoints down the canyon. It was interesting enough, and we had fun trying to spot the Colorado River at each location. If I go back again, I'd like to do some hiking down into the canyon itself. I've heard that Havasupai Falls is pretty amazing and it looks gorgeous from photos I've seen of it, but who knows how much of that is just photoshopped. It would probably be extremely disappointing to discover the sight you've hiked all the way down to see isn't as great as what you saw online, especially because you'd have a long hike back up to look forward to afterwards!

So that was the lead up to and first few days of the family reunion. There's still a reasonable amount to cover, so I think I'll get to the rest in the next post.