Test of Faith

Test of Faith Provo temple

On April 20, 2011 I was laid off from Provo Craft and during the meeting as they were telling us about it I had a feeling of peace that I would not need to worry about my employment because I had been there before and knew that the Lord had a plan for me and would take care of us. Well, it is a little over a year later and I have a job without sufficient income to take care of our needs but yet there is still money sufficient for our needs. It has been an interesting year and had I known on that fateful day what was really going to happen I might have felt a little fear but even then it couldn’t have been much. There have been a lot of little things happen in the past year that I could have never for seen on that day.

Today I am writing to tell my children a little more about this story of which they are not as yet aware. I went through several months of soul searching as I cleaned up the yard to prepare it for the family reunion in 2012. I spent many hours in prayer as I tried to decide if I could run a business from my home and felt many numerous promptings to give it a try and work at it as hard as I could. Well time has now shown that I wasn’t cut out for it still but due to those times and the need to turn to my Heavenly Father for more answers I have come away with some things that I really did not ever expect.

Part of the soul searching gave me a desire that I have not had for many years to attend the temple regularly. Oh I had been to the temple many times for weddings and somehow had conjured in my mind that it was a good thing since I was there even though I wasn’t actually doing any work for the dead, just supporting the work for the living as young people were getting married. Well the desire to attend more regularly helped me to make a commitment one day to attend it weekly, not just regularly. I had plenty of time on my hands that I could do just that and it wouldn’t even be a sacrifice of my time. Well I started going once a week on a different day each week and at different times of the morning. I started to see people I knew there and it was fun to see who I might see the next time. Then after a few weeks of going Brittany gave me some cards for family members with names that Uncle Vince had researched and for whom we had done some of their temple work for a few years earlier. I knew we had the stack of cards but they had been misplaced and several years had passed since that time. I kind of figured that the work was probably now already completed by someone else. I was wrong and Brittany checked on Family Search to make sure. Now I wanted to complete those names since the baptisms had been done in 2001 and only a few of the initiatory work had been completed for them. Well I ended up doing five names during the last weeks of December and first weeks of January. Then Brittany gave me 23 more name that needed initiatory. I went one week and with the help of another patron did all 23 in one session. I was finished early enough that I then did one of the names for the endowment that day. I then started doing them one name per week as I had done the others and we had a ward temple night so 6 of them were able to be done during it with the aid of ward members. Then a couple weeks later Colby went through the temple and we were able to  get another 6 done but that still left me with several that needed to be done and I was feeling the urgency to get them completed. Well by now I was starting to work for SOS staffing and was assigned to work at Supranaturals which did 4 ten hour days and left Friday open for me to continue going to the temple on that morning. I started then doing two sessions per visit and was able to complete the work of the endowments for all of the manes that I currently have by April 28, 2012. Now I am trying figure out how to get the sealing work completed.

Well through this it has become fun to go once a week. In fact I have met a fellow who goes every morning, Monday through Saturday, and attends the first session. I usually go on Friday mornings now due to work and will go Saturday mornings when I have to work Friday. Well this week was the first real test since I made the commitment to go weekly. I came down with a cold last week and was pretty miserable while in the session but not bad enough that I didn’t feel like staying. However during the week it has gotten worse and a cough has developed that gets intense at times. I went to work Wednesday and Thursday even though it was pretty difficult to make it through those 10 hour shifts and then Friday we had a wedding in Salt Lake and Kaysville so I couldn’t go on my regular day. So Saturday morning was when I would need to go to keep my commitment. Well Saturday at around 5 AM I awoke and having set my alarm to go off to wake me up knew it would go off around 5:40 AM. I laid there thinking about going to the Temple and finally decided that I wouldn’t go this week. So I reached over to the radio and turned it off so I could go back to sleep for a few hours and maybe help clear up my cold. However I kept having the thought run through my head that I had made the commitment to attend the temple weekly not weakly. I figured that since I had gone to work sick and had photographed the wedding while sick that I had no excuse to not go to the temple. Then the thought also came to me that if I went to the temple and had the faith that I should that I would not feel the effects of the cold while in the session. Those thoughts kept coming at me and of course I couldn’t sleep so finally I got up at the same time that the alarm would have gone off. I showered and got ready and had prayer with Marie and left for the temple constantly reminding myself that with sufficient faith I would not have a coughing spell during the session and have to leave it. I went into the chapel and waited for the session to start. I had about a 10 minute wait and then they came and took us to room 5. I had coughed several times in the chapel but was doing OK so I went through with the session even though I could have still waited. As I sat through the session I coughed 3 times total during that 1 and a half hours and really felt quite good the entire time. After I had completed the session I went down and dressed and left for home still feeling far better than I had the entire week prior to that. Well the cough has been a little more intense today and I had to leave Sunday School class for a few minutes to calm it down but I am still grateful for the blessing that the Lord granted to me yesterday as I attended the temple and had no complications during the entire session. I am thankful for the fact that when you are in need of the Lord’s blessings that he will grant them to you as you try to follow through with the commitments that you have made to Him. It is further proof of the great love that He has for each of us as we live through this trial of faith.