A Temple Testimony

I LOVE to see the Temple.

The Twin Falls Temple in Idaho was the site of my “wrong turn” at the very start of the softening of my heart. Where I stopped and “felt” the building radiate out into the street.

April 20, 2013:  I went on my first proxy Baptism trip to the Seattle Temple just shy of a month after my own baptism. It was that day when I started my father’s work and my forgiveness of him.

October 19, 2013:  I spent my first birthday after my baptism, performing proxy baptisms for my family in the Salt Lake City Temple. Afterwards, I enjoyed a wonderful lunch with the first and only Priesthood Holder who ever asked me out on a date. They served spaghetti at the Salt Lake Temple cafeteria. That's something you don't forget. Fortunately, since I was not yet endowed I was in my street clothes, not a white Temple dress. That was the last date Hyrum and I had, but we remain friends and he has since developed a friendship with my husband.

May 13, 2014:  I received my Endowments at the Seattle Temple, with 3 friends from 2 different Wards. Later that year, I went through Mt. Timpanogos Temple with one of my Sister Missionaries for the proxy Endowments of both my grandmothers.

Since May of 2014, I have befriended many Temple workers in many Wards and Branches. I have even roomed with one while I was needing a place to stay in close proximity to my grandchildren for a holiday season. She helped bolster my Testimony on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. Marian helped me understand Personal Revelation. A Returned Missionary, she helped me trust God. That is a gift I don’t know how to ever repay.

When I visit a Ward, I find myself looking around. The Temple Workers seem to “glow” with light. I went up to an older, beautiful lady one day in the Lacey, Washington Stake Center that I was visiting. I felt I HAD to know; “Did she work at the Temple?” Yes, in fact, she confirmed that she did. The “Glow” had been apparent across the room.

My Patriarchal Blessing explicitly states that I will bless my family on both sides of the veil with the work I perform in the Temple. In the past two years, I have been blessed to catch rides with Temple Workers on many occasions, giving me the opportunity to perform an entire shift’s worth of Proxy Ordinances while I was there.

Snowflake, Arizona Temple

I look at the Temple Ordinance workers with gratitude and amazement. Even though sometimes rather elderly, they seem almost spry. Their minds are clear and their memories amazingly retentive.

This spring, just short of my Temple Recommend needing renewed; I felt an overwhelming compulsion. My best friend (and Visiting Teacher), Anne, had been urging me to not only go to the Temple to perform Proxy Ordinances while she and my other friends worked; she wanted me to volunteer to work there too!

Anne works in the Laundry of the Snowflake Temple, she suggested that I volunteer to work there also. I hesitated, because doing my own laundry is difficult enough for me with a broken back and other chronic pain. But that didn’t deter her. She was convinced I should be working in the Temple with her and several of our friends in our Branch.

In early March, as I was speaking to our Branch President about another matter, the compulsion felt overwhelming. I was attempting to open his office door to leave. The Holy Spirit whispered, “Turn around and ask him…” I knew what the Spirit was speaking to me about. The compulsion was incredibly strong; it was if I could not turn the doorknob I was attempting to reach. “Turn around and ask him,” the Spirit continued to whisper, but I hesitated. I didn’t want to appear too eager, feeling there must be some requirement I didn’t meet. There is no way I felt qualified to work at the Temple. But the Spirit would not cease, so I turned around.

After asking my Branch President if there was some way I could help in the Temple, some place I could volunteer, and if my services would be adequate, I felt relieved of the compulsion for a few days. That Friday when I visited the Snowflake Temple during Anne’s shift, it returned in the Celestial Room.

“Go talk to the Matron,” the whispering Holy Spirit urged. “Why would I want to do that?!” In shock I answered in my thoughts.

“Tell her you want to work here, tell her your experience.” The Spirit would not let up.

I entered the dressing room to ready (and steady) myself. It was crowded, more crowded than I had ever seen. I sought refuge in the lavatory, but even that room seemed overwhelmingly crowded. I prayed for courage in the stall.

Sitting in the Matron’s office, I felt silly to have been so nervous. The Assistant Matron was on duty that night and was a genteel lady with a radiant countenance. She glowed. As I explained the Spirit’s (and Anne’s) urgings, and my experience as a retired computer programmer; she shared with me that there was a spot opening up in the Temple Office. A elderly couple that had been with the office since the opening of the Snowflake Temple in 2002 was retiring. Their shifts would not be easy to fill and they would be missed.

I felt a reassurance from my Heavenly Father. There was a service I felt confident I could perform. To be able to share my skills on computers and office work with the Snowflake Temple and help perform the work that needs to be done, felt like an incredible blessing. The Matron seemed happy to be placing my name on the lists to be approved by my Branch and Stake Presidents.

Over the next couple of weeks, during my Fridays at the Temple, I got to know the Temple Presidency through a couple of very informal interviews. By the time my volunteering in the office was approved by the Stake President, my Temple Recommend was up for renewal for the first time. I had to go in for my interviews again

Then it happened, I received a call asking me to come in for an interview at the beginning of my regular Friday visit. That is a day I will NEVER forget. As my friend Anne escorted me into the Temple President’s office, Elder Bradley Foster of the Seventy appeared to be looking for something on the President’s desk. He engaged me in a brief conversation before the Temple President entered. I wish I remembered that he was the one who gave the talk, “It’s Never Too Early and It’s Never Too Late,” in the October 2015 General Conference that spoke to my heart, but I was too overwhelmed by the situation. When the Temple President entered, I was surprised when I wasn’t to be interviewed, but quickly set apart as an Office Worker, and sent off to meet the rest of the office staff, Recorder and the Assistant Recorder.

I made quick friends with the other new worker and briefly met the retiring couple. My life in the weeks since has been blessed as, among other things, I've been able to learn my tasks at the Temple Office very quickly and life at home seems easier too. I look forward to my Friday Evenings in the Temple every week.

My Testimony of Temple work is solid. I have a powerful Testimony of the Holy Spirit and I strongly agree with President Monson’s directive to “NEVER postpone a prompting.”

I leave this Testimony with you in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My One and Only Sibling

Apparently last week was "International Siblings Day" Facebook. After looking it up on Wikipedia, I discovered that it wasn't invented by Facebook, and I felt bad that I had missed the opportunity to tell the world about my amazing relationship with my brother. My one and only sibling.

The Book of Mormon works in mysterious ways. So does our Heavenly Father. When I was learning the lessons getting ready to be baptized, my brother was also undergoing an immense amount of repentance and pain. Heavenly Father began to soften my heart towards my family again. In particular, towards my brother who I had shut out of my life during his involvement in drugs and then prison.

When I was repenting and contrite upon my knees asking my Heavenly Father for forgiveness, I was also asking Him to bless my family, especially my little brother who was suffering the worse loss a person could imagine. Not only the loss of his child; but the loss of a child, barely an adult, for whom he already felt guilt in regards to his absence while that child was younger. I could not imagine his pain.

I was impressed, since it had been many years since we had even spoken, to write a letter to him. Since I was aware that he had previously investigated The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I was also impressed to include a Book of Mormon.
The other items I included with my letter were a book of stamps so that he could write anyone he wanted to, as well as one self-addressed stamped envelope. I wanted a reply.

The letter with the Book of Mormon reached his residence at an inpatient facility that was mandated by his probation. His return letter indicated that he was also on the path to a baptism. His, by a church near his treatment home.
My brother and I continued to correspond for his remaining time in treatment. When he returned to the area, against the advice of many who remembered the demonic influences in his life and how he embraced them, I decided to meet with him and get to know my little brother again. It had been decades since we had spent a good amount of time alone. The last time we spent time together at all was during a holiday and it ended in disaster and drama.

My little brother was born to our mother and father when we were living in Port Townsend. It was 1970, and I was almost 4 years old. When our parents divorced almost a year after his birth, we remained with mom. It was the two of us against the world. Usually also against our parents, using one against the other like typical children of divorced parents in the 1970s. Only I was allowed to beat up my brother, and I would beat up anyone else who tried. Yes, I was the type of big sister who volunteers in her baby brother's kindergarten class. I loved that kid.

Life in our lives wasn't easy. An angry, abusive step father as well as a biological father who vacillated between being absent and being the worse types of abusive were the father figures we had. Our mother loved us and loved God. She tried to expose us to many different churches so that we could choose for ourselves. This was quite a difficult task, when if we mentioned to dad that we had attended one, we could end up with not only a spanking, but a ring-side seat at a yelling match from hell between our parents. But we attended anyway. As many times as dad asked each of us to deny our God, it was only with a wink to each other and our fingers crossed. Me saying my prayers for forgiveness as well.

Through the typical drama of abusive homes of divorce in the 1970s and 1980s, my brother and I had each other. We could talk about anything. Satan had his way, in many ways in our homes. Finally, a fog of drugs and abuse took my brother from me.

As he furthered his way into the drug world, I separated my young family from his. As his family was being raised by other people, I kept him in my prayers. Then there would come short times when he would sober up, or attempt to hide the fact that he wasn't; and seek to come around. It broke my heart every time I was forced to shut him out of our lives. For my children's sake, it was all I knew how to do.

It was my little brother who called me on an August 2000 morning, to inform me of our father's suicide. Neither one of us had been informed officially, our father's only children, and we were not informed until 10 months after  his death on the weekend of my birthday in 1999. After tearful hours on the phone with his widow, I learned that the timing was not coincidental. In the 15 years that I had not seen or spoken to our father, his abusive obsession with me had not wavered. Our father's suicide was 50 years after his own father had taken his life when our father was 4.

Major Depressive Disorder, among other challenges, run in our family. Both my brother and I have dealt with this challenge ourselves. After our father's death, my brother and I saw each other a few times. He was in and out of prison, and I was raising a family. Our mother kept on me to get in contact with him through the years, but it wasn't until that Book of Mormon that I was impressed to do my best to fix what Satan and our temporal father had attempted through his abuse to tear apart.

Through the summer after I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, my brother and I began to spend a lot of time together. It was the first time since childhood that we had really had the opportunity to get to know one another. I, for one, found in my little brother a friend I never imagined. Someone who knew me, as I knew him. Someone I could give another chance to. Someone I wanted around me.

After a summer full of blessings of the new friendship of siblings, we were put to the test. In October I had been impressed that I had $300 put aside to spend on transportation and I had been frustrated at my lack of a car.  I asked my brother to come with me to see if I could find a car to finance. I had the afternoon before an evening meeting at the Family History Center for my new calling.

As we walked, we crossed a double train track. There was clear visibility both directions for at least a quarter mile. We crossed without hesitation. The Holy Ghost was a wonderful companion while car shopping, and amazed my brother by witnessing to us certain flaws to watch out for in each car. I was happy I had prayed that morning. Everything was wonderfully clear.

On our return trip, after having no luck in the auto venture, we came back the same way. Only this time, there was a train stopped on the tracks closest to us. We looked down each way, the train was at least a quarter mile long in both directions; I thought to myself it was going to be a long walk.

While I was thinking this to myself, my little brother did what he had always done while I was in charge of watching him while we were kids: embraced his impulsivity. He said "let's go" and proceeded to go under the train, stopping to get up between the train tracks before leaning under the train, to beckon me towards him.

I was in absolute shock. I don't remember speaking at all. I do remember how wide my eyes got when I felt Satan attempt to take my brother. I heard a witness by the Holy Ghost: Come BACK NOW!!!! I frantically motioned for him to come back.

For one of the first time in our lives, my baby brother actually listened to me. As he ducked and went back under the train, we felt the ground begin to rumble; before he was standing upright on my side of the tracks, a train was passing at an extremely rapid pace on the track that my brother was nearly standing upon seconds before.

If I had followed him, and not acknowledged and obeyed The Holy Spirit, neither my brother nor I would be alive today. We were so blessed to spend the holidays together for the first time in years as a family with our only living parent, one of my children, and two of my grandchildren. We are a family and we are blessed.

With our grandma, Margaret Ellen Savage Rebman in the 70s

I did end up spending that $300 on transportation, but that's another story on the pile for another time. It, too, is a long one.

What an Incredible Week

Wow. I can't believe that it's the night before Easter. One week ago I was baptized. One week ago tomorrow, I was confirmed as a member of the church.

I FEEL the spirit of resurrection SO deeply tonight. Filled with the Holy Spirit, I feel blessed beyond measure.

It has been less that a month since I contacted a sister so that she might assist me in getting in contact with a missionary. The rest, as they say, is history.

THEN I was BAPTIZED!!!

And life BEGAN anew!!

In no small way, my life began to be FLOODED with BLESSINGS!!!!

Tuesday, in the Family History Center with a Sister's guidance, I was able to make contact with a distant cousin who had a treasure trove of photos of a grandfather who's face I had never seen before. This followed a miraculous story of his heroism in World War II that I was able to uncover in the FHC and a grainy newspaper photo's discovery that day.

Subsequent messages exchanged with my cousin have proved very cathartic and healing for me and my family. Learning about the inequities visited upon my ancestors due to misunderstandings and judgements, and having been given the opportunity to set the record straight for my descendants is an INCREDIBLE blessing.

Then, on Wednesday, I was graced with the gift of my words and creativity. During my period of contrition and repentance before my baptism, I was told in prayer that my words would come back after I made that covenant; I had NO IDEA how much that would be true!
My poor fingers have gone to sleep tired each night since!

My words and questions and opinions have flowed incessantly, it seems. Within that time, I have posted several pieces on my personal "random thoughts" blog: Slightely Maggie.
I also designed this blog and have written and posted several pieces.

When I decided that perhaps some people may read this, and desire to give me feedback, but not necessarily publicly; I could not find a pre-designed button that worked. So, I encoded a bit of HTML.
The first code I have written in over ten years. I just hadn't felt inspired to do so; UNTIL NOW!

I had a wonderful time visiting with sisters I had known from my ward as well as others when my dear friend took me to my first singles dance on Friday. It was great to dance while maintaining my righteousness and celebrate new friendships. So many new friendships! Wonderful!

I cannot begin to thank God enough for the WONDERFUL women he has brought into my life in the past few weeks. Generous and kind with their words and deeds, I am so grateful to have them in my life.

Another blessing has been the GORGEOUS weather this week. I couldn't have imagined a more beautiful weekend to be celebrating Christ's Resurrection as a newly baptized woman! A daughter of God, a sister of Christ.

I thank God for all the many blessings of this week; both that I have mentioned and for every moment since last weekend. I am so incredibly grateful for everything.

It is AMAZING.
I pray that the blessings continue, in YOUR life as well as mine! Happy Easter!!!!