Palmyra New York Temple
I was supposed to be in Detroit today, visiting the Detroit Michigan Temple.
Accordingly I arrived at the Baltimore Washington International airport around 6:30 AM in order to catch my 8 o’clock flight. It would arrive in Detroit around 10 AM.
The temple doesn’t open until 7 PM. My return flight to Baltimore leaves Detroit at 10 PM. I had mapped out the bus schedules and the Uber cost in order to get to the temple. I wouldn’t have time to do an endowment session but I could do some initiatory‘s or sealings then rush back to the airport. In the meantime I would have most of the day to explore Detroit.
I was most excited about the fact that on January 1 I purchased this airfare, round-trip for only $72. This would be one great day in Detroit, a city I’ve never been to.
That all changed around 7:30 AM when the word “Canceled” suddenly showed up on the marquee behind the flight attendant at the Spirit Airlines desk. The Detroit Airport runways were iced over due to a snowstorm. They could rebook me to a flight at 7:30 that evening but that doesn’t do me any good. So I made my way to the counter and got a refund.
Then the moment of truth arrived. What do I do with my day now? It’s these kind of unexpected decisions that you have to make that determine the true course of your life.
On the one hand I could go home, change clothes, and go back to work. I cannot go to Detroit so that’s out. I checked other cities that I might go to but the airfares were too expensive. I thought about going home and taking a long winters nap.
I can do any of those, but it would not help me reach the goal that I had set for today which was to visit a temple. I pulled out my world temple map and discovered that Palmyra New York Temple was the closest one that I had not visited and it was also open today.
I took out my GPS and found out it was 343 miles driving and would take 5 1/2 hours to get there. That would put me in Palmyrs around 2:30 PM.
The first endowment session was at 6 PM. I could attend that. I was very curious to see the new changes that have been made throughout the church in the endowment session. I would be done around 7:30 PM, get some dinner, then drive back home. I would arrive home around 2 AM where as if I had flown to Detroit I would’ve arrived home around 1 AM.
The net difference in my day would only be one extra hour. Instead of spending around nine hours finding something to do in Detroit, I would be on the road going back-and-forth to Palmyra New York.
Besides, I was already dressed to go to a temple. And once I visited one more temple it would be time for the wildcard drawing to see which temple in the world would be my final one for the year.
I went with my goal. I put in the GPS location for the Palmyra Temple and headed north.
Around 2:30 I arrived at the Hill Cumorah Visitors’ Center. That’s when the first little tender mercy happened.
I met Stan Kauffman who had taught seminary at American Fork High School with my sister. He told me about the influence she had on him. She changed the way he taught seminary and institute for the next 34 years.
After a personal tour of the visitor center Stan directed me to go up the road to the Joseph Smith home but I would meet Elder Robbins. He called me while I was on my way and told me Elder Robbins was one of the finest teachers in the church. Apparently Elder Robbins also knew my sister.
Elder Robbins gave me a personalized tour of the Joseph Smith homes.
This was rapidly starting to beat the heck out of anything I could’ve seen in Detroit.
After this wonderful personalized tour, it was time to go up the hill to the temple.
After dinner I drove the 340 miles back to my home. I arrived home around 3 o’clock in the morning.
It was one of the most fascinating days of my life. It’s the decisions that you make when your plans get changed that determines the real course of your life.
This was my 47th temple visited since January 2017. More importantly, it was my 23rd temple visited for 2018 which means it’s now time to pick the wild card temple!