Temples and Sealings

Because my next post is all about my brother’s wedding in a temple, I thought I’d post definitions for those who are unfamiliar with my faith:

Temples are literally houses of the Lord. They are holy places of worship where individuals make sacred covenants with God. Because making covenants with God is such a solemn responsibility, individuals cannot enter the temple to receive their endowments or be sealed in marriage for eternity until they have fully prepared themselves and been members of the Church for at least a year. Throughout history, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples.

Sealing– An ordinance performed in the temple eternally uniting a husband and wife, or children and their parents.

Dress Rehearsal

After many hours at the sewing machine, help in pattern reading from Heather and several calls to Mom, I have finished the dresses for the wedding! Sabrina’s is one that Heather gave to me, I added a belt and a bow and it works out so nicely! I don’t think I would have had the patience or time to make one for her too. I took pictures to get a feel for how the dresses and bows will look on the big day. I still need to attach the belts for Emma’s and Hannah’s dresses, and hair isn’t done so the look isn’t quite as crisp as it will be on the big day. We are so excited for Matt and Ashley and are preparing for our last road trip of the summer, whew!

Newport Beach

On Monday night, after Rob got home from work, we took the family to Newport Beach. This is Ciel’s first visit to the ocean (not counting Guam where she was born). Everyone had lots of fun chasing the waves and collecting seashells. We’re so lucky to live close to the beach (only a 15 minute drive away). I’m not sure how often we’ll go, though, since we’re still working on getting the sand out of everything! For more pictures of our beach adventure with Ciel, check out our gallery.

Home Church

We’re home from our trip to Utah! It took us 14 hours to make the trip home, and we brought our cousin Ciel back with us too. She’ll stay with us for the next 10 days and we hope to show her a little bit of the Southern California sights. I know she’s glad she gets to fly home and doesn’t have to make that long drive again! We were all so exhausted from the drive and just couldn’t get up and ready for 9:00 church. We did have a nice “Home Church” though. We have had Home Church a few times in the past when we’ve had a large group of visitors or a lot of sickies in the family and it’s usually a good compromise.

Today we read and discussed Ether Chapter 2 and the beginning of Chapter 3. It is all about how the Lord helps us solve our problems. The story is of the brother of Jared who was directed to build barges to cross the ocean to the promised land. He built the boats and found that there were two problems because of their design (Ether 2: 16-17). The first was that there was no way to get fresh air from the outside. The brother of Jared told the Lord he was worried that they would die without any air. The Lord then told him just what he needed to do: Go put one hole in the top and another in the bottom that you can plug closed. Open the hole that is above water to get fresh air and if the boat turns and water starts coming in, close it up again.

The second problem was that there was no light in the boats, to which the Lord answered- You’re right, you can’t have windows that would break and you can’t build fire inside the barges either. What do you want me to do to help you solve this problem? The brother of Jared then went and made glass-like stones out of melted rock and brought them to the Lord telling Him that he knew the Lord could give them light by touching them. The Lord did touch them and they did give the light needed in the barges.

We discussed some reasons why Heavenly Father would want us to come to a solution on our own and then come to Him with our ideas. We shared stories of problems that we have faced where the solution came right away, or only came after we did some work for it. As a parent I can appreciate this gospel lesson even more. There are times when I as mother do the same thing. Some problems get an immediate answer and other problems get the answer: What do you want me to do?

Mini Golf

We had so much fun going to play miniature golf together!

The crew pauses for a photo.

Emma got a little frustrated a few times while trying to master her putt.

Hannah just picked up her ball when she felt like she was done and put it wherever she wanted.

Sabrina was a great cheerleader.

Hunter was our dedicated score keeper.

Our Cousin Adriene

We had such a great time yesterday when Adriene came for a visit! Tracy’s sister Erin just moved near us and had her baby, Max, last Saturday. So Adriene and Tracy came up to visit the baby and help out. Tracy brought Adriene over to play with us for the afternoon while she helped Erin (and was jealous about baby Max’s arrival already- she’s due to deliver next week) and it was so fun. I’m trying to remember and I don’t think I’ve ever been able to have a cousin over for a visit without their parents around. I love their parents of course, but it’s so fun to see the kids interacting without them. It was such a treat to have her here, and we’re all getting more sad by the minute to know that they will be moving to Texas soon. Come back Adriene!