Week 1, Day 7: Home

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

- Maya Angelou

I went home this past weekend. In stating this, I was home in Idaho enjoying my family and taking a break. I love the quote above because I so often ache for home, for acceptance, for relaxation. I tend to lead a (self-inflicted) busy and chaotic life in Salt Lake City, and there is something that happens to me when I go home. It's like my rushed and hardened exterior seems to slowly melt away as I am enveloped in a world of acceptance and love. I feel the love of my parents and the love of the Lord, because this is where I first learned to feel it.

 This is my home. It's currently covered in probably a foot of snow, but it's lovely, isn't it?

As I think of this home, as well as the home that I yearn to create one day, I also think of other homes that mean even more to me than these. I was blessed to go to these two homes this weekend as well. 

The first one is the chapel where I attend weekly services. I love to go to church. The best part about it is that it doesn't matter where the chapel is or which congregation I attend, it is the same, and I know I am in the presence of my brothers and sisters and being taught through the Spirit of God.

But this morning at church, something extra special happened. I went to church feeling an especially heavy weight and yearning to feel Christ and feel that home. Mortality at times can seem heavy and I was seeking to feel alleviation from the cares that I have been carrying. As I prepared my heart to take the sacrament, an overwhelming peace came upon me and I felt my burdens grow lighter. It was a sweet experience and it made me feel that I had come home.

This is a chapel in Uruguay, where I served my mission. This is me with their sweet, hardworking Relief Society presidency.

This is the chapel we attended in St. Maarten. Yes, the Church is even the same in the Caribbean!

Then finally, the temple is the home that I yearn for most because it is the House of the Lord and a sweet lifeline for eternity. Last week, as I spent time in the Salt Lake temple, one of the temple workers kept calling the temple home. He insisted on calling it that before any other name for it.

This week, as I attended the Rexburg temple with my mother, the words of the good brother in the Salt Lake temple once again came to my mind, and I felt his words sink deeper than they had done before. When I enter the House of the Lord, I go home. The temple experience never fails to remind me of the saying: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience," or something like that.

Below are a few temples (or homes) that I love:

The Salt Lake City temple, located a block from my office, is my current temple. I love this temple.

This is a picture I took during the time of dedication of this temple located in Apia, Samoa.

 This is the Montevideo, Uruguay temple. I took this picture while serving as a missionary there.

This is my sweet parents in front of the Washington, D.C. temple. I spent four months there in 2008 and was blessed to live very near the temple.

I am so grateful for my homes that remind me of a Heavenly Home and prepare me to one day return to it. I am blessed to have so many places to call home. Oh, how I love them all.