The inevitable finally happened, I turned 40. The day before my birthday I went up to spend time with the youth at Trek. Even if you were only going up for the day, you still had to sport the pioneer look. Pioneer outfits are not the least bit flattering, especially when you have to add even more bulk by wearing pants under your skirt. It was so great to go up and hear everyones stories of faith through trials. I was getting misty eyed all day talking to my (from our ward) youth and leaders. The added bonus was going straight to a former yw's house at 11pm that night and getting to watch her open her mission call. That was the first time I've got to witness that experience, and let me tell you, it was awesome!
The morning of my birthday I woke to an empty house. The 2 youngest spent the night at the neighbors house because I got home so late from trek. My husband and 2 oldest were still up at trek. So, when I woke up to severe itchy skin, I took a couple of Benadryl and went back to bed. Not a very exciting start to the day.
As part of the trek experience each youth had to bring up an "ancestor" sack. This was a brown paper bag filled with 3-5 things about a pioneer ancestor they have. I think that with all the preparation I did getting the kids ready for trek and then spending the day up there had me thinking about family history. I had been worrying about getting to the Temple in June because saturday was the last day the temple was going to be open for 2 weeks. I don't know about anyone else, but when I started going to the temple on a regular basis I now get really uncomfortable if a month goes by without me attending.
When I woke up the 2nd time I had this sense of urgency driving me to call the temple and see if I could get in and seal some of my family members together. I was hoping that Nate and the kids would be getting home by 1 so that Nate could go with me. I decided that with or without him, I had to go. I figured that there was no better way to spend my birth day than giving the gift of a sealing ordinance to my family members who had gone before me. I called and made the appointment and hoped that I wouldn't end up spending the entire day by myself. I started getting more emotional the sooner it got time to leave.
I sorted through all the sealings that I had and checked to see which families were ready. I knew Emma's family was ready and I had a feeling that Oliver's was too, but I had no idea I had 8 total families ready to go. I put them in the order of priority incase I could only get a few done. Emma is the daughter of my 3rd great grandfather Francis Witman on my Dad's father's side. Oliver is also my 3rd great grandfather on my Dad's mother's side. I couldn't get Emma and Oliver out of my mind and figured they were the reason for the urgency. They are both on my Dad's side and 5 generations from me. Pretty interesting and cool.
It came time to leave and I found out that Nate and the kids were still an hour from home so I set out to accomplish the only thing I really wanted to do for my birthday. Sure enough, when the work was being done for those 2 families I was overcome and knew that I was driven to go do their work because they wanted me to. I also got the feeling that one of Oliver's son's was happy I was there, which took me by surprise. Everyone that was there had a bunch of names to do so it took a long time because the sealer wanted to get everyones work completed. My favorite guy was there that was showering me with compliments my first day working as a volunteer. He had no recollection of me and went into the whole bit again about my beauty. It was awesome.
After the temple I met up with the rest of my family and we went to dinner, we came home had some ice cream cake and then I took an oatmeal bath to try and stop myself from scratching off all my flesh. I would say that this is going down as my most spiritual birthday yet. I am grateful to be alive at this time. I am grateful for my age because I've been around a while now and I've gained so much knowledge and perspective. I wouldn't want to be younger again because I wouldn't want to loose what all these years took me to gain.
Families can be together forever and our ancestors are anxiously awaiting that promise!
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