Maddie's temple talk

Last week Maddie went to the temple for the first time - this Sunday they had her give her first sacrament talk! Time, please slow down! My little girl is growing up way too fast. She did an amazing job and I am so proud of her! 

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Good morning brothers and sisters.

This morning I have been asked to speak about my first experience at the temple. This year I will be turning 12, which means I now have the opportunity to serve in the temple by doing baptisms and confirmations for people who have passed on. On Friday night, along with the other youth in our ward, I attended the temple for the first time.

Although at first I was nervous and a little unsure, I felt so peaceful when I entered the temple. It was so quiet! It’s nice to be in a place where you can sit and think with no other noise. It was such a wonderful experience to be there with people I love, reassuring me as we did our session together.

Many people are not given the opportunity to enter the waters of baptism as they live on this earth. We are given the chance to provide them a way to be baptised as we do work on their behalf.

Each temple has the words, holiness to the lord, the house of the lord, written above the entry and I know that the temple is a place of peace, the place we can be closest to our Heavenly Father on this earth.

President Spencer W. Kimball once said, “It would be a fine thing if parents would have in every bedroom in their house a picture of the temple so their children from the time they are infants could look at the picture every day until it becomes a part of their lives. When they reach the age that they need to make the very important decision concerning going to the temple, it will have already been made.

I am so blessed to know that I belong to an eternal family. My parents were married in the Perth temple and both sets of my grandparents were sealed in the New Zealand temple long before I was born. I love knowing that when our time on earth is done, we will all be together again. It’s especially comforting to know this as my dads parents have both passed away. I know it will be amazing spending forever with my family.

In primary we learned the song, I love to see the temple.
I love to see the temple
I'm going there someday
To feel the holy spirit
To listen and to pray
For the temple is a house of God
A place of love and beauty
I'll prepare myself while I am young
This is my sacred duty

I love to see the temple
I'll go inside someday
I'll covenant with my Father
I'll promise to obey
For the temple is a holy place
Where we are sealed together
As a child of God, I've learned this truth
A family is forever

The world today is a really hard place to grow up. There are so many things placed in our way that can drag us down. But as we attend the temple and remember the promises we make within, we will be more able to bear every challenge and to overcome each problem. I am so grateful for a temple close by and to know of the blessings that come from being part of a forever family.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

A baptism photo shoot for Joseph

For "the boy who never smiles," we had no problems today. I wanted to get some lovely shots of Joseph for his baptism invitations and set aside some time to make it happen. We got his hair cut nice and neatly to make sure Grandma would have been happy, that was so, so important to her. After I finished work on Wednesday, I took him home for a shower and neatened his hair up, put on some nice church clothes and dropped Madeline at dancing (Alex was at Nannaleahs) so we could go to the temple and get some shots on the grounds.

I was so proud of him. I told him, the sooner you smile and pose nicely, the sooner we can go home. It'll take fifteen minutes if you work with me.

And that is all it took! Done and dusted and on our way home in 15 minutes flat.

I honestly believe it was because none of the other kids were there with us... it was him and I, with all my attention focused on him, just the way he likes it. He is honestly best with one on one situations, so I thought it out ahead and made it happen.

I can't wait to see the invites made up and ready, the shots are great! ❤

 

temple thursday

thank goodness for nannaleah. i managed to slide in to do one last temple session this morning before our temple has an extended closure until after christmas. no matter how hard it is to get there, i always feel better for having been. i always race in with just minutes to spare, but somehow always make it. 

i am grateful today - and always, that we have a temple within our reach. i feel for those who are able to visit only once in their life, or never have the opportunity. it always makes me think back to one of my favourite ever talks by thomas s monson, about a family who worked their entire life to get there.  

"May I share with you the account of Tihi and Tararaina Mou Tham and their 10 children. The entire family except for one daughter joined the Church in the early 1960s, when missionaries came to their island, located about 160 km south of Tahiti. Soon they began to desire the blessings of an eternal family sealing in the temple.
At that time the nearest temple to the Mou Tham family was the Hamilton New Zealand Temple, more than 4000 km to the southwest, accessible only by expensive airplane travel. The large Mou Tham family, which eked out a meager living on a small plantation, had no money for airplane fare, nor was there any opportunity for employment on their Pacific island. So Brother Mou Tham and his son Gérard made the difficult decision to travel 4800 km to work in New Caledonia, where another son was already employed.
The three Mou Tham men labored for four years. Brother Mou Tham alone returned home only once during that time, for the marriage of a daughter.
After four years, Brother Mou Tham and his sons had saved enough money to take the family to the New Zealand Temple. All who were members went except for one daughter, who was expecting a baby. They were sealed for time and eternity, an indescribable and joyful experience.
Brother Mou Tham returned from the temple directly to New Caledonia, where he worked for two more years to pay for the passage of the one daughter who had not been at the temple with them—a married daughter and her child and husband.
In their later years Brother and Sister Mou Tham desired to serve in the temple. By that time the Papeete Tahiti Temple had been constructed and dedicated, and they served four missions there.
My brothers and sisters, temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service."

a small video has been made by the church about this talk and is available on you tube and i cry every single time i watch it. how spoiled i feel to be so close to a temple. i hope to never take it for granted and to be able to attend regularly as time goes by. the months when the temple was closed during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic were so disappointing to me and i am so glad it's open and i can attend again.

 

temple saturday

when we moved into our house in aveley, i made a goal of attending the temple once a month. i am proud to say that i have nearly always managed to keep that goal steady. sometimes i have scraped in on the 1st of the following month due to something i couldn't control and then gone again later that month... but the point is, i have tried my hardest and as president nelson said, "the lord loves effort, because effort brings rewards that can't come without it."

i have tried so hard to keep to my commitment and i know that blessings have flowed because of it. i love being at the temple and being able to feel close to my father in heaven in his holy house. i am especially grateful to those who have helped make it happen. for the times i slide out of bed early on a saturday (like this morning!) leaving doug home with the kids, or the times i fly past the pinkers and throw alex at them on a thursday so i can make it in time. 

i am just so grateful to be able to make it happen - and for a temple right out on our doorstep. ❤

so many things to be thankful for

i was so grateful to be able to attend the temple today - with so many things to be grateful for! we finally received word yesterday from that last insurance company (the one that had been stressing me out) - that the claim on oli's life insurance had been received, assessed - and would be paid in full. but the best was yet to come, the amount we had been expecting was just one third of what was paid out. we actually couldn't get over the figure that was owed.

what a relief and a lifted burden. i honestly was so happy/relieved that i burst into tears at work, much to the horror of my co-worker, who was just happy it wasn't anything serious. it had been playing on my mind for so long and to have such a wonderful end result was just the most amazing thing that could have happened. i was so full of gratitude and love today that i could have burst, especially after a final prayer the day before yesterday from both doug's sister and that by some miracle we would have a good result. so the temple was the perfect place to be. 

in good times and in bad, we take our prayers to the temple, for the temple is the place where heaven and earth meet - and we can be the closest to the lord.

temple with oli

oli and i went to the temple this morning and it was so nice to see her there and now she was feeling peaceful. it's been a rough week for her, the chemo that worked before is no longer working and her dr has started her on one final option, which he has told us is much more aggressive than the other options and may be the last chance there is. she decided to go ahead, in her words, "i want to try everything they have. if i don't try it, i won't know, it could have been the one that helped." 

while we were sitting in the session waiting our turn to go through to the celestial room, she leaned in close to me and said, "i keep imagining i can see stephen there waiting for me behind the veil." i love that she knows that when her time comes, that he is there and will be waiting for her to take her hand as they spend eternity together. what a blessing it is to know that because of the sealing power in the temple, we know that families are forever. 

i have loved that we have been able to attend the temple so many times together over the years. ilove the time we get to spend together and seeing her so at peace in the house of the lord. what a blessing.

 

last temple day for 2019

with only two days left of this year - let's talk goals here. we are pretty overwhelmed right now with the very real possibility of losing doug's dad in the coming weeks - so what do i want to focus on right now? an eternal family. and what's the best way i can do that? keep my focus on the temple, keeping the covenants i made there and making sure i am worthy to be part of an eternal family.

yesterday i made it to the temple one last time for the year completing my goal of attending monthly for the fourth year in a row. it felt good to achieve it and it feels good to be there each month and to know i am in the right place. 

so what's my goal for next year? same thing. make it there another 12 times. something simple and doable, to keep me going in the right direction.

a picnic at the temple

my gorgeous friend ash messaged with an awesome suggestion last week - to meet at the temple so the kids could have a wander around looking at everything and then a picnic afterwards. the kids (especially alex!) were thrilled to see her and we had a great day.

the perth temple is in such a perfect spot... tucked away behind a main road, yet so peaceful.

i love taking my children to the temple, i always think of that scripture in proverbs 22:6 "train up a child in the way that he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 

i know from personal experience that my parents faith has certainly helped myself and my siblings remain strong, so i only hope my own can do the same for my children.

it was such a beautiful day to be there, the sun was shining bright, the flowers were blooming...

and our picnic was delicious. fruit and homemade banana bread? perfect!

so lucky to be raising these three cuties.

kids chilling with aunty ash.

then out to the back of the temple for a wander...

this little one kept making an appearance in all my photos, but the more the better... i am in denial but he'll be one in just a few days, so the more shots i have to showcase the better.

there is nothing better than being at the temple with good friends.

a place of peace

it has been one of those weeks. alex isn't sleeping, i have been feeling so anxious it's ridiculous and am struggling big time. there have been lots of tears and not just from the baby. sometimes it's just really hard to do life. i am sure anyone with kids (and especially with a baby) can sympathise. but, my week got better, when my husbands sister came over yesterday afternoon and looked after the kids so i could go to a temple session.

in her april 2014 general conference talk: keeping covenants protects us, prepares us and empowers us, rosemary m wixom, the primary general president said: "temple ordinances lead to the greatest blessings available through the atonement of jesus christ. they are those ordinances necessary for our exaltation in the celestial kingdom. as we strive to keep our covenants, our feelings of inadequacy and imperfection begin to fade, while the ordinances and the covenants of the temple come alive. everyone is welcome to walk that path to eternal life."

i am here to tell you that's true. in the temple itself, all those feelings i carried began to fade and when i left that evening, i felt like i could actually do it again. how unbelievably lucky we are to have a temple close by. we are seriously so blessed. 

temple nights

quite unexpectedly doug was home today which meant after picking the kids up from school i could rush over to the temple and do the 4pm session. game changer, because it meant i could be back for dinner and in time to tend to the grizzly baby who wants a feed before bed and does not like the bottle. 

the last few weeks have been a struggle, we have been stressing with all the appointments and hospital visits for doug's parents and it was so nice to be there in the peace and calm for a few hours. it was exactly what i needed. 

for those of you who may stumble across this and are not members of our faith, we do not attend the temple for a weekly meeting. we attend as often as we can (some weekly, some once a month, some less often - just whatever we can personally manage) to perform sacred ordinances first for ourselves and then on behalf of others who have passed on before having the chance to do them for themselves or perhaps before ever having a chance to learn of the gospel of jesus christ. we often attend to witness a marriage of friends or family members, or a sealing, which binds family members together for eternity, allowing them to remain together after this life. many are under the impression that the ordinances we perform are a secret. not so. we do not speak of them publicly as they are sacred in nature and should only be discussed within the temple. it is a place where we can go to feel close to the lord and to be able to take our troubles and receive inspiration and personal revelation. it is the place we believe we can be closest to the lord on earth and brings us so much peace. how grateful i am to live so close to a little piece of heaven, the perth australia temple. ♥

back to young women’s we go...

there i was, thinking i was home and free without a church calling, when the lord decided otherwise... and just before new years, i was set apart as the second counselor in young womens. oh my word. i've never tried to hide the fact that i am not good at all with teenage girls and struggled the last time i was in young womens (as the president i might add!) so i'm a bit nervous about this time around too!

upside is that i get to serve alongside one of my best friends - and another good friend, so i should be able to stumble my way through it! i really hope i can be some influence for good on the girls.

tonight we had youth temple baptisms and i got to (finally) have my turn as the towel angel (handing the towels to the youth as they come out of the font) which i loved. i love seeing them dressed in their whites ready to serve, it's amazing. maybe i can do this!

so here's to 2019 and a new start... young womens here i come! 

though storms may rage...

i love to go to the temple, it always feels like a place of refuge, somewhere safe from the outside world. as rosemary m. wixom said, "in the temple, all feelings of inadequacy and imperfection begin to fade."

tonight was an incredible experience, there was a storm absolutely raging outisde, so loudly in fact, that at certain parts of the session, we could hear the rain beating down on the roof above us. it was incredible, that the elements could do that, on a building that generally is soundproof. wow!

it just reminded me, that although storms may rage, peace will always be found within the walls of the temple. ♥

temple saturday

saturday morning started the best way possible by going to the 7am temple session with my mother in law. this picture was taken at 6:43am... after getting up at 5:45am, which for me was a trial in itself because i am not a morning person... at all.

but it was worth it, of course and it made the rest of my day a breeze.

"When a temple is conveniently nearby, small things may interrupt your plans to go to the temple. Set specific goals, considering your circumstances, of when you can and will participate in temple ordinances. Then do not allow anything to interfere with that plan. This pattern will guarantee that those who live in the shadow of a temple will be as blessed as are those who plan far ahead and make a long trip to the temple.

I encourage you to establish your own goal of how frequently you will avail yourself of the ordinances offered in our operating temples. What is there that is more important than attending and participating in the ordinances of the temple? What activity could have a greater impact and provide more joy and profound happiness than worshipping in the temple?" (quote found here)

since i made a commitment to attend the temple once a month in january 2016, things have been different. i know where i am meant to be and throught making a commitment, making sure i am there is easier. ♥

one step closer to heaven

my sweet friend aniwa made it one step closer to heaven yesterday as she went through the temple for the first time and received her endowment, before being sealed to her parents along with her brother. it was such a beautiful moment to share with her and be a part of... she asked me to be her escort (the person who sits with you and helps you through). it's the first time i've had such a privilege and i felt so loved to be asked.

watching this sweet girl come back to church, be married just over a year ago and now this, has my heart bursting with love! there is such joy to be found from the blessings of the temple and i know she is so happy to be closer to her father in heaven.

some of the lovely girls from our ward... there to support our girl! ♥

tobiassen sealing

just after christmas, we were lucky enough to be there when our friend ryan and his lovely wife lindsay and little baby boy hayden were sealed for time and all eternity.

as members of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, we believe that through sacred ordinances performed in holy temples, we are able to be with our family and loved ones not only for this life, but throughout the eternities. 

and so, when when our friends are sealed, we feel so blessed to be there and share that joy with them

♥

it was an amazing day... 

filled with so much love ♥

instagram top nine

it's a new year and i keep seeing these instagram top nine photos appearing in my feed, so i thought i would jump on the bandwagon and see what mine had in it. i honestly cracked up laughing when it came back with these 9 pictures that make me look like an absolute molly mormon. 

left to right, top to bottom:

the salt lake city temple during my visit to utah in february

our little family at the pinker wedding

an evening session at the perth temple

provo city centre temple also during my visit to utah

dallas texas temple with the demkes

rocking my mary poppins outfit at the madeley ward trunk or treat

another evening at the perth temple

madeline's moana party "heart of te fiti" cookies

the salt lake city lds conference centre

it was definitely a great year, with some excellent memories - and being that most of them involved church this is a perfect nine for me. 

let's hope 2018 is just as good. ♥

a special sealing

best. day. ever.

yesterday our friends were sealed as a family. it was the most amazing day, with so much love in that room. i felt so blessed to be in there and share that moment with them. we took a lot of beautiful pics, but this watercolour will have to do... as it's a day i don't ever want to forget.

theron and emily's sealing ♥

"for the temple is a holy place, where we are sealed together...

as a child of god, i've learned this truth,

a family is forever."

today we had the joy of being there as theron and emily were sealed for time and all eternity. one of the most wonderful parts of being a member of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints is having the knowledge that once we are married in the temple we are able to be with our spouse and children for not only this life, but whatever comes after. it was a truly perfect day, not a cloud in the sky and there was so much love in the room as they promised to love each other forever surrounded by family and friends.

each time i have attended a temple wedding or a temple sealing (meaning we are "sealed" together) it has given me an opportunity to think back on my own, almost twelve years ago, still the greatest blessing of my life. i know there are difficult days, but the promise of eternity makes it worth the effort.

it was beautiful to be able to take the children with us today too (big thanks to those who chased them around the gardens). i love knowing that they are growing up with the temple in their sights. they know that family and friends have been and will be married there, and they know it's somewhere they want to be. i can't wait until they can come inside with us.

eternal friends

today this gorgeous girl made one of the best decisions of her life (other than becoming friends with me hahahaha) as she entered the temple and received her endowment. it was such a beautiful day, even though it was stormy outside, it was warm in our hearts... and i feel so lucky to have been there with her. 

there's not too much i can say about dom that hasn't been said, but this picture kind of sums it up... i love her - and she kind of just goes with it ♥

pindred spirits: part two

many moons ago, i got busy pinning on pinterest and noticed i kept pinning the pins of someone going by the name cbks. i thought it was another friend who often goes by her initials (which to be fair are quite similar) and kept pinning only to find out from dougs sister dominique that it was a friend of hers from back in queensland!

after years of pinning, cara and i
eventually became facebook friends at dominiques suggestion
discovered more things we had in common
tried to meet up when i was in qld two years ago, which didn't end up happening.
but we kept hoping the day would come.

it did. cara had planned a trip to perth to surprise her mum for her birthday, then realised she had completely gotten her booking wrong and was coming two days earlier than she thought, so had time days to kill! i was only too happy to help with that and when she arrived last night, there was no awkwardness, so lulls in conversation, just plenty of fun like we had always been friends.

tonight we went to the temple together and cemented our friendship with our love for the gospel. what better friends to have, than those you can keep for eternity?

hooray for "pindred" spirits! ♥