August 21, 2019

St. Paul Minnesota Temple

My St. Paul Minnesota Temple adventure started at the Baltimore Washington International airport yesterday afternoon at about noon. I went there straight from work so my pick up truck had a load of junk in the back. At around 2 PM I landed in Minneapolis and decided to sleep there until about five. “There” means on the ground in a corner at the airport gate.

Welcome to St. Paul Minnesota!

I knew I was in a good place when I spotted these bad boys for sale in the airport. After getting some sleep for a few hours I lined up an Uber driver and headed for the temple which didn’t open until 7 PM.

Giving Out an Articles of Faith Card

My Uber driver was from Ethiopia. A really nice guy. He told me Ethiopia was the second country to officially accept Christianity back in 326 A.D.. We talked about temples and the Church. He’s had the missionaries over before. He knew quite a bit about religion and appreciated the articles of faith card I gave him.

The St. Paul Minnesota Temple

The St. Paul Minnesota Temple is in Oakdale Minnesota, about 35 minutes from the airport. When I first saw it I thought wow, this is a small temple! It sits adjacent to the stake center which is very convenient. The grounds outside the temple are beautiful with all of the cool colorful flowers.

The temple opened for patrons at 7 PM. I did an endowment session using a name that my mother had submitted and printed off for me. I now have a small batch of similar names that she gave me tucked away in my briefcase. Each time I go to the temple now I’m doing work for an ancestor. That’s different than what I’ve experienced in the past.

I took a panoramic photo of the area showing the stake center adjacent to the temple. I hope it shows it accurately here.

Stake center on the left; temple on the right.

Some Familiar Faces

It’s amazing who you come across in a temple. Tonight there were two gentlemen there who reminded me of people from my past: one was Ray Pratt, a neighbor in North Potomac, Maryland, and the other one was William Miller, my dentist growing up. The similarities between these four were uncanny!

Next Stop: The Minnesota Twins!

I checked into a Best Western hotel about a mile and a half from the temple. I loved the king-size bed where I slept in until 11:30 the next morning after taking advantage of the free breakfast around 8 AM. From there it was an Uber ride to Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins.

The Twins were playing the Chicago White Sox. It was four to nothing for the White Sox when I left around the top of the eighth inning to go to the airport. I loved their Wednesday hotdog deal though, where the hotdogs are only a dollar apiece. I ended up getting two hotdogs, a bag of peanuts, and a lemonade for only seven dollars!

After the game it was another ride on Uber back to the airport ironically with another Ethiopian driver! We too talked a little bit about the temple as that was the purpose of my trip. He knows a little bit about Mormons and told me I’m the first Mormon he’s ever met! He asked me about our position on gays which I answered for him quite simply.