Temples and slightly homesick

On Saturday I slept like all day, which was perfect. I woke up with just enough  time to go to the store, do a load of laundry, and then head to the special Saturday night activity. There’s an activity every Saturday night for the YSA members but on Saturday they had a special activity about temples. They pretty much just told facts about different temples around the world and bore their testimonies about temples, they didn’t really tell about the ordinances in the temple or anything but they used a lot of the words like sealing rooms, celestial room, etc. I brought one of the other study abroad students with me. Most everyone went to Mykonos this weekend but we didn’t so I asked her (Sam) if she would like to come with me to learn about temples, ok no I didn’t, I asked if she wanted something to do Saturday night that included free pizza. No one turns down free pizza so she went with me. She was so surprised at how welcoming and happy everyone was. I walked in and everyone greeted me (all of the sister missionaries like to give me a big hug in greeting) and I introduced Sam to everyone and by time we sat down she was like “wow everyone’s so……friendly” In my mind I was thinking you are every missionaries dream, you aren’t a member and willingly came to a meeting about our temples.

About half way through the presentation on temples I realized that even though I grew up learning about them I really never paid much attention and had no clue how to explain some of the questions Sam had. I made mental notes of the ones I couldn’t figure out how to explain to a non member and asked the sister missionaries to explain them to her while we were eating pizza. One of the questions she asked was one I knew I had learned and had just packed the answer away somewhere and just needed to access it. She asked why oxen were held up the baptismal font in the temple.  I looked up the answer on my tablet and as soon as I read it I was like oh yea I’ve learned that before. I bet you’re all racking your brains trying to remember this small detail that seemed so big to my friend, they represent the 12 tribes of Israel and in 2 Chronicles 4 it describes the baptismal font and it says that it rests on the back of 12 oxen.

And then I could see the question forming in the sisters eyes before they ever asked it but they nicely engaged Sam in a conversation and casually threw in there hey you should come with Brittney to FHE on Monday and – Hey wait who said I was going to FHE, it takes a lot of planning and time on the metro to get to FHE and sometimes I’m just not in the mood for the 45 min public transportation/walk to get there. Now they had trapped me into their plan also. – maybe you would like to come early and talk with us. On the inside I was kinda laughing the whole time because I had made this offer to the study abroad group many times when they ask me questions that I can’t quite figure out how to explain without using words I would also have to explain. It’s a little harder to say no when two sisters and 2 elders have you trapped. She said that she would meet with them so we set up a time to meet at the church. I’ll keep ya posted on how that goes.

During our conversations about the different temples I exclaimed how weird it was to not go to the temple for a whole semester and how excited I am to go back to Utah where I live within driving distance of like 5 temples and the sister missionaries were like hey you should go to the temple in Germany and stay with our families. I didn’t have Germany on my list of things I wanted to do before leaving but I quickly changed my plans from partying in Barcelona to a temple visit in Germany. On Monday we are going to contact their families and see if they would be willing to have a visitor come at the last minute. If I go it’ll probably be June 1-3.

The one thing I have learned from this study abroad is that I did not pay nearly enough attention in primary and Sunday school. I have greatly taken advantage of the fact that I live in Happy Valley and that everyone just knows what you’re talking about.

I Skyped again to see the reception at the Anderson’s and if I wasn’t homesick before this did it. Seeing everyone from Mapleton was good but also made me wish I was there. I think the last 27 days in Greece are going to be the hardest. I have a feeling they are going to make the first 88 days look like a walk in the park, a park in America not one here, the parks here are weird.