“Don’t Forget Where We Are”

For those of you who don’t know, my current church calling is temple patron.  I remember finding out about this calling last year and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  For those of you who aren't members of my faith, our temples are a house of worship, but different from our churches.  One must be a worthy member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to attend and many sacred ordinances are done in the temple.  When I received this calling, I was going through a really rough patch and I remember a friend telling me, “This is an answer to your prayers. You’ve been praying to find peace and now it’s your calling to go to the temple.”

Janel, my roommate, was also called to be a temple patron.  So we decided we’d go once a week. We started with temple Wednesdays, where we’d go at 3 PM but that only lasted for a week.  Since then we’ve been going on Fridays and it seems like 6 AM is a good time. Yes, I willingly wake up at 6 AM on Fridays to go to the temple, and let me tell ya, I love it. I love going to the house of the Lord and spending time thinking and praying for strength and inspiration.

This past Friday it was especially busy and when we got there at 7 AM, we didn’t leave till 9 AM because there was quite a crowd. First and foremost, a bit of bragging, I was recognized by one of the temple workers. This is a pretty cool feat, because the Provo Temple is SO BUSY and so many people come through every week.

Anyway, as we were walking out, the man at the desk said this to us: “Come back soon. We’re looking for ya. Don’t forget where we are.”

I was thinking about that for awhile and I think I might have made a little analogy.  Work with me here. When we lived in the pre-mortal existence, we lived with our Father in Heaven.  He loved us dearly and wanted us to receive a body here on Earth and have the experiences necessary on Earth to return to Him.  I expect that we were nervous.  I venture to say many of us were worried about the challenges that would befall us and were scared about making it back.  In my mind, I imagine hearing advice and words from our God about our life and how to get back and how to make it through this life with as little pain as possible.  Our Heavenly Father, in His infinite wisdom, probably told us to “come back soon” and that He was “looking for us” and not to “forget where [He] is.”  I think we are all too busy in this life.  How often do we get caught up in the midterms, dating, drama, TV shows, new Taylor Swift album, video games, movies, etc.?  How often do we fall to our knees in prayer?  How often do we serve our fellow men and feast upon the words of the prophets?

What did I say, you may ask, to the man behind the desk?
“Don’t worry, we’ll be back again next week!”
What did we say to our Heavenly Father before making this journey here on Earth?

I think it’s safe to assume we said, ”Don’t worry. We’ll be back soon.” And I pray that we all find our way back to Him one day.