Annette and I decided when we first got married that we wanted to make temple service an important part of our marriage. From 4 May 1990 to 15 June 1990, we lived in the "cabin" and ran the "ranch." The cabin was located in Turnerville, Wyoming and was owned by Annette's parents. The ranch was the ranch I grew up on located in Thayne, Wyoming.
We decided that we would go to the temple once each week. While we lived in Turnerville, we chose to go every Friday after I got home from the afternoon school bus route. Our assigned temple was the
Idaho Falls Idaho temple.
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| Idaho Falls Idaho Temple |
As near as I can remember, we went every week. We drove the 90 miles, did an endowment session, and then drove back home. It also seemed like we were invited to be the witness couple almost every week that we went. I think we did initiatory work at least once during this time.
At the end of the session the second or third week, a temple worker asked if I was interested in working the veil after the session. I said yes. At that time, a temple worker would come to the ordinance room and ask if any veil workers were in the session. These individuals would be invited to go through the veil first and then assigned to work a station at the veil. The temple worker instructed me to come up when asked. He then trained me at the veil and invited me to be a veil worker anytime I visited the Idaho Falls temple.
We moved from Turnerville to Provo, Utah around June 15, 1990. Our assigned temple was the
Provo Utah temple. While we might have missed a week here or there, in general, we attended the temple once each week until we graduated from BYU and moved to Florida. We would usually go at 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning. We always did an endowment session.
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| Provo Utah Temple |
Annette's grandparents on her mother's side of the family were not able to come to our wedding. (They lived in Seattle.) Sometime in the fall of 1990, Grandpa and Grandma Simmons came to Salt Lake City to visit another family member. Annette and I arranged to meet them at the
Jordan River Utah temple to do an endowment session with them. This was my first time and only time to meet them.
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| Jordan River Utah Temple |
We met at the front of the temple and went inside for an endowment session. After we were seated in the endowment ordinance room, Grandpa Simmons turned to me and whispered: "Is the new name ______?" I was shocked. I thought we supposed to keep the new name confidential. I did not know for sure what to do, so I just nodded my head to confirm he was right.
SIDE BAR: The Jordan River Utah temple has always been a special memory for me. In September or October 1981, we took horses to the pulling match at the Utah State fair. Dad was sitting in the shade with several of the other pullers when someone mentioned that the Jordan River temple open house was happening. Mom and Dad decided we should go. In those days, temple open houses did not happen very often. Mom and Dad thought it would be a good experience for us kids. We did not have any nice clothes as we were at the horse show. But we went anyway. I remember the white bootie socks that we were asked to wear as we walked through the temple and the peace I felt inside the temple.
During our time in Provo, Annette and I also made a few visits to the
Salt Lake Utah temple.
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| Salt Lake Utah Temple |
We moved to Tallahassee Florida in August 1994 to attend Florida State University. Tallahassee was in the Atlanta Georgia temple district. However, Atlanta is about 275 miles (5-hour drive) away from Tallahassee. In addition, we had no money (literally!). Therefore, we decided that it would not be feasible to go to the temple once each week. While we considered our options for getting to the temple, the
Orlando Florida temple was completed and dedicated. The Orlando temple became our assigned temple. Orlando was slightly closer to Tallahassee than Atlanta. It was only 250 miles (4.5-hour drive) away.
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| Orlando Florida Temple |
After we arranged our financial affairs through student loans and fellowship money, we decided we would sacrifice to go to Orlando once each month to attend the temple. We would leave Tallahassee at 5:00 a.m. to drive to Orlando with our two children (Jamie, age 2, and Tanner, age 6 months). When we got to the temple, either Annette or I would go in to do an endowment session. The decision about who went first was dependent on the mood of the kids when we got to the temple. The other of us would stay with the kids. After one did a session, we would eat lunch together and switch places so that the other of us could do an endowment session. When both of us had done an endowment session, we would drive back to Tallahassee. We usually arrived back home around 9 or 10 at night.
At first, we would wait for each other in the parking lot. If it was not raining (which it usually was), we would walk around the temple with the kids. Otherwise, we sat in the car (a Ford Probe). After we got to know Orlando a little better, We discovered a McDonald's with a playground relatively close to the temple. So, we would drive there and let the kids play in the McDonald's playground. Due to our lack of money, we usually purchased a single small soft drink to share so we could feel like customers and use the playground. Sometimes we would splurge and by a kid's ice cream cone for each child.
We became friends with Scott and Kristin Sampson in our ward in Tallahassee. Scott was a professor in my department at Florida State. They also had two young children about the ages of Jamie and Tanner. We learned that they also tried to go to the temple at least once each month. After Tanner got big enough to leave alone for most of the day, we would trade off watching kids with the Sampsons. On a couple of occasions, Scott and Kristin paid for a hotel room at the Days Inn in Orlando for Annette and me to give us a date night and temple trip away from the kids. The Sampsons moved to BYU in summer of 1996. From then until 1998 when we moved to Oklahoma, we did a few "watch kid swaps" with a couple of other friends in our ward. However, we discovered that we were leaving our kids with friends more often then they left their kids with us. So, we mostly went to the temple and did our own swaps between Annette and me rather than take advantage of our friends.
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| Dallas Texas Temple |
We moved to Norman Oklahoma in August 1998. We continued our monthly temple trips to the
Dallas Texas temple and later the
Oklahoma City Oklahoma temple. We would hire a baby sitter for the kids while Annette and I went to the Oklahoma City temple. Our ward would receive regular assignments to do initiatory sessions. So, we started doing initiatory sessions instead of just endowment sessions. Because the Oklahoma City temple is a small temple, our ward also received regular assignments to clean the temple. We would set an appointment for the last endowment session of the day and then stay after the session to clean the temple.
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| Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple |
We moved to College Station, Texas in June 2005. Our new temple became the
Houston Texas temple. From 2005 to 2018, our temple attendance became less regular. As our children got older and became more involved in athletics, orchestra, choir, and other school activities, Annette and I found it increasingly difficult to find a date each month to go to the temple. We still tried to attend once each quarter. In addition, we decided that we also wanted to begin doing sealing sessions and added that to our rotation of temple work.
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| Houston Texas Temple |
Beginning in 2010, the church increased their emphasis for youth to do temple work and take their own names to the temple. Since that time, we have made family temple trips to include our children to do baptisms to the
Rexburg Idaho,
Nauvoo Illinois,
San Antonio Texas, Orlando Florida, and Houston Texas temples.
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