I LOVE to see the temple!

Yesterday was mostly a dull day, filled with normal routine activities and not much else. I had an outing with friends planned for after the kids went to bed, but I was having a hard time generating much excitement about anything. What to make for dinner, what to do for family home evening...blah blah.

All that changed when I logged into Facebook and saw my friend's profile: "A TEMPLE IS GOING TO BE BUILT IN PAYSON!!!! YIPEE!! I just read the story on KSL.COM" (thanks, K.B.!) And, sure enough, when I clicked over to Deseret News, there it was: LDS to construct temple in Payson.

YAY!!!!!!

Now, I realize all this excitement comes as a bit overdone for 90% of the world. For 70% of the LDS world, even. As my little brother puts it, "Now you have a temple close enough to walk to, rather than to run to." A bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. The Provo Temple is only 13 miles away from my house; Google Maps puts the walking time at 4 hours, 14 minutes. The new site for the Payson Temple is only 9 miles away, the walking time is 2 hours 53 minutes. (I sincerely doubt I will ever walk to either temple, but there you go. They are both insanely close to me.)

The Provo Temple, built as a high occupancy temple, is very very busy. The Mount Timpanogos Temple took some of the load off, but not enough apparently. Even with sessions every 20 minutes, in the evenings it is not unusual to have to wait more than 40 minutes in the chapel. Andwhile it is lovely to suggest that people go during the day, most people work, have classes, or have kids--during the day just isn't an option.

All this is to say, anxiously, don't hate us if you still have to drive 3 hours to get to your temple, and here we are rejoicing that we get to drive for 15 minutes instead of 25. I would have been perfectly happy to keep going to the Provo Temple, but I'm really really REALLY excited about our new temple.

I'm excited that my kids are excited. For FHE last night we talked about temples, and about the prophet's announcement about the Payson temple. I'm excited that the Primary is going to focus on the temple, that we'll be able to take little "field trips" to the temple site, to watch it going up. I'm thrilled to be one of the 22 stakes (presumably, as the exact language is "22 stakes from Spanish Fork to Nephi") that will get to help out with the open house and all. I'm excited for the increased Spirit this will bring in our lives, especially during the preparation and dedication.

I'm just really, really excited. It's just an empty field past the Wal-Mart and near the turf farm right now, but just wait. We're getting a temple!