McAllen Texas Temple
There’s a lot to say about this temple trip! But I have to start off with this commercial from Chipotle, because it features a girl named Karen who works at Chipotle in McAllen, Texas. I plan to go there for lunch tomorrow, and I hope to meet her!
https://youtu.be/SuJ79oaw8Z8?si=qmzv1Pvyen84ADPB
Note: I’m here at Reagan National. It’s 3:11 AM. The security checkpoint doesn’t open until 4 AM. Time for my first nap! 😴
Note #2: Become a member of Clear. If you do, you can relax while others stand in line for 45 minutes and you will still beat them through the security checkpoint!
They put me on the very back row, aisle seat, 36D, for the flight to Dallas. When they loaded me up with free snacks, and a free soda, I knew I wasn’t on Frontier airlines…🙃
The temple session was great! I got there a little early so I joined in on a Spanish session. Chose not to use the translator headphones. Got a free Spanish lesson along the way!
A wonderful guy pulled up to the temple right when I needed someone to take my photo. He told me after the session that he tried three times on the way to the temple to buy gas for his car but none of the pumps worked, so he just figured he needed to get to the temple for some other reason. He told me afterwards, I must’ve been the reason!
After the session, I went to the nearest Chipotle, because a nationwide television commercial had been filmed from McAllen Texas, and I was hoping to meet the young employee who starred in that commercial just for fun. It turns out she’s now the manager of the site that I visited, but she was off today. No matter, because as soon as I walked in the door, there were four young missionaries!
I paid for their lunch and told them all about what we’re doing back in Washington DC. It was a lot of fun! One is from Mesa, one is from Taylorsville, one is from Tooele, and one is from Portland. Had a great talk with them!
I also showed the missionaries this map from my phone. If it’s green, it means I’ve been there; if it’s red, it means it’s open, but I haven’t been there; if it’s yellow, it’s on my hit list. If it’s blue or purple, it means it’s under construction or been announced. My next area of focus would be any place that it’s red! And the spots that are marked yellow!
I gave out one of my Come To Church cards to the Uber driver, who drove me back to the McAllen airport. I’m now waiting in the vacant terminal for my flight to head to Dallas in about two hours.
McAllen Texas Temple
Having now been to the McAllen Texas Temple, I’ve now done temple work in all of the operating temples in the United States! That was not my original goal. But after eight years, it has now happened!
This is a beautiful temple in a beautiful city. One of the nicer ones from the outside architecture standpoint. Loved being here with so many people who speak Spanish!
It’s quite a wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Every temple is a new and fun experience in its own way. My three favorite words now are “O Canada” and ”Hola!”
One last thing: the lady who took the photo of me last week at the Casper Wyoming Temple is named Sister Hardy. Her daughter is on a mission here in McAllen Texas. The missionaries I took to lunch know her daughter. I sent them the photo that was taken of me by her mom at the Casper Wyoming Temple last week and they’re going to show it to her tomorrow at stake conference! How’s that for a small world! 🌎