One of my favorite quotes from the introduction to the temple that day was by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, "I don’t know how to speak of heaven . . .in the traditional, lovely, paradisiacal beauty that we speak of heaven…I wouldn’t know how to speak of heaven without my wife, or my children. It would not be heaven for me. Now, you can say that’s wishful thinking, you can say, ‘ Well that’s just because you love each other and you’ve gotten cozy here on earth and you like each other’s company.’ It’s a lot more than that. There is something eternal in the statement that neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord. That isn’t just good sociology it’s good theology, it’s eternal" (Holland, Between Heaven and Earth).
I, too, would NOT be in heaven if David and our children were not there with me. An eternity without them would be an eternity of hell. I am SO THANKFUL that I don't have to know that misery. And the hope of it makes me want to live to be worthy of it SO MUCH MORE during my time with them each and every day on this earth.
One of my favorite moments at the Open House was with Isaac. He couldn't get enough of the 12 Oxen - symbolic of the 12 Tribes of Israel. When he saw them, he said, "Wow! Mom - look at that!" And as he stood at the head of the Baptismal Font, he exclaimed, "That is just PERFECT!" Then he proceeded to explain to me the differences between oxen and cows and bulls and yaks. I still don't even know how he knows what a yak is, but these ARE my kids who request to watch Animal Atlas and Word Girl on Netflix! LOL! We had talked about the oxen and looked at pictures online, but I honestly don't remember ANY mention of a yak! :-)
One of my other favorite moments was when we first got there and my sister's little boy, Elliott, asked where his brother, Isaac, was. With SO MANY girl cousins, I'm SO GLAD these two have each other! I think they will always be great friends, even more so as the age gap narrows. And since his last visit with the girl cousins on Dave's side of the family ended with him asking in his prayers that they never had to come back again, I'm glad we live close enough that he can enjoy some "boy" time with Elliott. Just this last weekend when we got together with them, they were making all sorts of animal noises and grunts and growls at the breakfast table. When we asked them to stop, Elliott said, "But we boys!" LOL! Already, they're getting each other into trouble! :-)
