Los Angeles Temple Trip

This week has been crazy.  On Tuesday, we woke up early so that we could get on the road by 6:30 am.  Los Angeles is about 3 1/2 hours away (depending on the traffic, which was pretty bad that day).  We were scheduled to make the 10:00 am temple endowment session, but we didn't make it on time.  On the way down we learned that Brother Charles Brown had set his alarm for 5 pm instead of 5 am, but he had woken up at 5:40 am.  God wanted us to get to the temple.  Near Newbury Park (the city where the temple is located) while going up a hill, Brother Brown's car started overheating!  We pulled over.  So much for my prayers that the car would run smoothly.  However, I did pray that the other drivers would be mindful of us.  A lady in a white Cube saw us from across the concrete median and pulled around to ask if she could help us.  Five white, Mormon men and she asks if she could help?  Well, she had a pack of water in her car, which was just what our radiator needed!  Amazing!  For a

second, I thought God was messing with us (waking up Brother Brown, then letting us get stuck), but it turns out that we just were supposed to get to the later temple session and spend some time in the visitor center










The Los Angeles Temple is the second largest temple in the world (Salt Lake is the biggest).  The session was nice.  They had a Creation Room, Garden Room, Telestial Room, Terrestrial Room, and Celestial Room!  The murals on the walls were so pretty.  The place where I felt the spirit the strongest was when we went downstairs to look at the baptismal font.  The sister working there stood at the door

and warned us that when she opened the door, we were going to feel the spirit.  I kind of shrugged it off until she opened the door and then, BOOM!  The spirit was pretty strong.  There was a picture of Christ being baptized.  Apparently, when President David O. McKay saw this paining we said that is the closest painting to Christ he had ever seen!  We ate at the cafeteria in the temple. Weird, huh?  I had a torta.  Yum! (Actually, many of the larger temples have cafeterias so the workers have a place to eat while they are serving in the temple.  I don't think any of the temples Hyrum has been to have cafeterias, so that was new to him.)

I questioned Hyrum about the traffic and if this is the kind of traffic he drives in.  He said, The traffic I drive in is not near what the LA traffic was.  Santa Maria is 100,000 people.  It feels like a really Mexican/ghetto, Billings and the traffic is about the same as Billings.

You can see the spire of the temple just coming into view over the billboard of the watch.

Here is the beautiful Los Angeles Temple with palm trees! 

We had interviews with President Felix this past Thursday.  He is so great!  He had really good things to say about our companionship and made me feel like he really knows me and cares.  Sister Felix is pretty awesome too.  She reminds me of Granny. :)