Heavenly Father's Tender Mercies...

Man, I can't believe how the time seems to rush by.  We are soon completing our fifth month here.  It has been so great even with the extra hot and humid summer we had. This week has been so wonderful.  Some days have been overcast and a little cooler and breezy because of trade winds but that is a welcome relief.

We are house sitting for Keith and Debbie this month, as of today, while they are on the mainland.  They left last night and will be gone until mid December.  We moved some of our things in today-a few clothes, our food from the fridge and toiletries.  It should be good having a little more space, no, quite a bit more space.  We actually have two bathrooms, a big living room and a VCR and movies to watch on our down time.
It will be strange this year not having any family around for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I thought we would have Keith and Debbie here but not so.  I did find out that all the senior missionaries from PCC and BYUH are invited to Thanksgiving dinner together at a place called Tita's Grill (owned by our bishop).  They provide dinner for homeless people so we get to help with that too. Should be fun.

Recently I started back up with the B of M 365 reading program.  This is an instagram site that has daily reading assignments to read the Book of Mormon in 365 days.  I started it early this year but got busy with my mission for a while and now I am back on course.  Today's reading was 3 Nephi and the question going along with that chapter was, "Why is it important for us to keep a journal?"  I have not been a very diligent journal keeper in the past and I keep promising myself to get better at it.  I feel that the blogs I write each week are a good start but I need to be better at it.  One of the conference talks this last October was titled "What lack I yet?"  That is one of many things I lack on my journey to perfection so I need to improve.  So, in keeping with that, I want to talk about my week in the temple.

I was a little nervous about having our scheduled changed to five days a week.  However, I think anything worth having in life is hard and I knew it would be hard to wake up at 5:00 a.m. or before and be at the temple by 6:00 every day.  After the first couple of days it got easier.  I won't say I wasn't tired during the day but I was able to do it day after day.  There were other concerns I had as well but due to the tender mercies of my Father in Heaven I had very little to worry about.  After leaving the temple each day I noticed that the pain that I experience occasionally with my back was almost non existent.  I didn't even take my normal ibuprofen.  Another tender mercy has been that the temple is busy.  I am not one to enjoy just standing around with nothing to do but we have been so busy that the time went by so very fast each day.  I love that.
And maybe the biggest tender mercy I was able to experience this week was a special spirit with me.  Our new temple president, President Kealoha, gave some very inspirational messages in our training/prayer meetings and mentioned time after time how close the spirits of those who are having their temple work done really are.  One particular day I was talking to a young girl who told me she was doing the work for her grandmother who happened to be a Queen in that culture.  I actually felt so strongly that her grandmother was indeed right there in the room with us.  I got tears in my eyes as I could feel the connection between this sweet girl and her grandmother.  I was so happy to have prepared myself that day to be able to receive that testimony of the work that we do in temples.  I hope I can be in a spiritual enough place each day to feel the love of our God as he prepares His sons and daughters to spend eternity in His presence.

Well, I know I have gone on and on so I'll close now since Larry and I are going to watch a movie, a luxury we have while house sitting since we don't have a VCR or movies in our apartment.

Have a great week everyone!