Laie, Hawaii Temple Re-Dedication Open House

 On December 28th this year Scotty and I will celebrate our 8th anniversary! I can’t believe we have been married that long! We have friends are age who have kids beginning high school and I feel like we just finished high school. We were sealed in the Laie, Hawaii Temple on the first day the Temple was open after Christmas break on December 28, 2002 at 8:00 am.

The Laie Temple has been closed for renovations for almost 2 years now and will be re-dedicated next month in November. We are really excited. We made Temple Blocks to get us excited about the re-opening and the youth in our ward are participating in a cultural celebration the Saturday before the re-dedication. We are looking forward to the open house where we are able to open the Temple to the public. Scotty and I have been asked to be escorts to lead the various groups on guided tours for the open house! I am so excited but am also nervous, I hope people won’t ask too hard of questions that I can’t answer. I’ll practice saying…” hmmm that’s a great question- let me refer you to two of my friends to answer…” (then I can hand them over to the missionaries!).

This past Tuesday we headed over to BYU-Hawaii in Laie for training for all the tour guides. As a side note: they had the training in the “Cannon Center” – before going I asked Scotty “why are they having it in the cafeteria?” (thinking of the Cannon Center at BYU-Provo).lol it was actually their “gym” hee hee.
Anyway, we had a 1 ½ hour training where we were given guidelines on how to be tour guides- it was very interesting and was neat to see so many people from various back grounds that will be representing the church. Elder Kikuchi spoke as the concluding speaker and gave us some advice as we prepare to be Temple Tour Guides:

1. Invite a personal sacred grove experience by kneeling down in prayer in a private place and call upon Heavenly Father to ask for help to speak his words and to represent Him. Pray continually to have His help during this time.

2. Read the Book of Mormon- at least 1 chapter a day, to invite the spirit into your life, and you will be blessed daily.

3. Be careful what entertainment you choose, don’t watch R rated movies or view pornography because our message is a celestial message - be a vessel for that message to be able to dwell within you.

4. Have prayer with your spouse each night. Work to have perfect unity.

5. Hold Family Home Evening.

I thought this was great council for our daily lives. At the end of the tour we are asked to share our testimony of what being sealed in the temple means to us. It will be a neat experience to be in the Temple where we were sealed almost exactly 8 years ago and share what that special experience means to us, I’m looking forward to it.