Columbus Ohio Temple

Columbus Ohio Temple

I started my White Friday Thanksgiving temple tour yesterday afternoon in Bethesda Maryland. My plan is to visit seven temples in five days.

One of the highlights of the drive was going through the Allegheny Mountain tunnel. That’s an engineering marvel!

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That plan got possibly derailed when in Somerset Pennsylvania (that’s where Pan Am Flight 93 went down…) my check engine light went on.

A free diagnostic at AutoZone said it was the camshaft tension sensor. That’s a $9.99 part and they had one of them in the store so I bought it.   Thank heavens there was a dealership whose service department was open until eight! These guys were great.

They installed it and told me the light went off. I got back on the freeway and two minutes later the light came back on. So I drove onto Columbus Ohio and slept in the back of the cab of my truck.

You gotta love these rest areas along the freeways. I curled up in my sleeping bag and made my 6’3” frame fit into about a 5’3” space. You can’t beat the cost… I was staying about 30 miles outside of Columbus. I was thrilled to finally see the city.

It’s men like Ralph Lowell that make this church so awesome.

Ralph pulled into the stake center parking lot, directly across from the Columbus Ohio temple, about 10 minutes after I got there. I arrived around 8:45 in the morning; Ralph arrived just before nine. Ralph has a temple worker and seemed to be in charge.   He’s really good at it!

The endowment sessions don’t start until 11 AM. I said hi to him and told him about the trip that I was on. He suggested I could help with the baptistery which opens at 10 o’clock which could save me an hours worth of time. That was a great suggestion!

I did what he suggested. I was a witness and then helped with some confirmations. Since starting this track in January 2017 I haven’t done any work in the baptistery until today. It was a great opportunity!

Are young family name Schwendleman was there. I helped them do their baptisms and confirmations. I recognized their last name and asked him about it afterwards. He is a cousin to Fred Schwendleman who was a long time well known instructor at BYU. That’s where my dad taught school.

After about 45 minutes of helping them out, I was back in the truck and headed to Indianapolis Indiana. The check engine light is still on but it’s not blinking… That’s a good thing…