We all need a little R and R time, even though our day-to-day work in the temple is so Rewarding and Refreshing! But honestly, as this two-week shut-down time is coming to an end, it has felt weird and not quite right NOT to be in the temple everyday. We have been set apart by Priesthood authority as temple missionaries, and that is where we belong right now! So it will feel great to get back to work, doing the Lord’s work!
Of course we did spend four of those days helping to clean the temple, from 8 am to 12 noon, Wednesday through Saturday last week. Our assignment was on the 2nd floor. Ed mostly was on scaffolding every day vacuuming out the air vents and cleaning the recessed lighting. I helped vacuum all the 12-foot drapes on the bridge, and helped clean the Youth Center and office suite. On the last day, we were running out of jobs for the volunteers from local stakes who had come, so I went into the laundry to see if they needed any help. No one was there, and they were all caught up, but I stayed in there for 30 minutes or so, just looking at the paintings of the Savior in there that I hadn’t noticed before, and pondering the doctrine of cleanliness. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness!” “No unclean thing can enter the Kingdom of God.” “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” You don’t find much dirt to remove when you clean the temple. I remembered an article I read years ago in the Ensign magazine written by a sister who had changed her bad attitude about cleaning the temple when it wasn’t even dirty. She realized that it is all about keeping the temple from ever getting dirty in the first place! Going over every nook and cranny so carefully. Like we should do in our personal lives.
So what did we do in the rest of our time during the break? Since this blog will serve as a scrapbook of our mission, I will post pictures of a few things we did:
Marine Band Sousa Concert (Karl & Karen Johnson) Air and Space Museum, Chantilly, VA
Natural History Museum (also saw Jerusalem 3D at IMAX) Hope Diamond at Natural History Museum
St Mary’s City, MD in a reconstructed thatch hut Ed and Bryan Lowe at St Mary’s City, MD
Point Lookout, Chasapeake Bay, MD Confederate POW Camp, Point Lookout, MD
Bryan Lowe family on Solomons Island, Patuxent River 4210 56th Ave, Bladensburg, MD (our 1950’s abode!)
Street-side front of Bladensburg Primary School The Bladensburg corner where I was a crossing guard!
Back home to Kensington –- a gorgeous 50-degree sunset! And the next day, 6 inches of snow, and a cardinal visitor!
