Manhattan New York Temple
January 19, 2017: It started with a desire to get three more of my Broadway posters framed, plus an effort to pick up three more that my friend Hadji had framed and held for me for almost two years. Hadji owns a framing shop on West 44th Street in New York City.
I was excited to pick them all up at the end of the day then return to North Bethesda, Maryland to proudly hang them on my wall.
It was the trip to the Manhattan Temple during that day that changed everything.
I had never been inside the Manhattan Temple. I’d been to it; just not inside it. With a day to spend in New York City I thought I’d put a session in the temple on the agenda.
What impressed me the most were the chairs. Inside the temple they have the most beautiful butterscotch-colored chairs. Oak doors and framing also add to the beauty of the temple, but it was the beautiful medium-brown colored chairs that caught my eye.
It was also the people. I met a Sister Harris who, it turns out, was in the same ward as my cousin Holly Cook, from Bountiful. Holly took third in the World Figure Skating Championships a number of years ago. Sister Harris said Holly was the pride and joy of the ward.
Then it was the Reidlers. I found out from Sister Reidler that they had spent time at West Point and were in fact the recruiters in Utah for West Point candidates.
So I told her about my nephew, Courtland, who was at the US Naval Academy now but had thought all along he would be going to West Point. They knew Courtland. In fact, they knew him well. Imagine: going to a temple in New York City and meeting people who knew my cousins and others who knew my nephew. It truly is a small world in the Church.
I paid $22 for lunch at the Lincoln Center across the street and ate it proudly. I then discovered that the Julliard School of Music was next door so I poked my head in there. I had a man take a photo of me in front of the temple to remember the visit. 
That’s when I had the idea. Why not try to visit the various temples of the Church and take a photo of myself outside of it? That would leave a wonderful legacy for my kids and grand-kids that would show them what was important to their ancestor. And, like I posted that night on Facebook, what happens in the temple is simply the “…best show in town.”
It dawned on me that here I was spending about $35 each to frame my Broadway posters (plus travel) and yet the temple was going unframed in my apartment. The idea of framing these visits seemed to balance out my other hobby of attending Broadway plays and doing something to remember them by.
So I mapped out on batchgeo.com all of the temples of the Church currently operating. I then thought about where I wanted to spend my time this year and laid out a schedule to visit two temples per month. We’ll see how it goes!
This little temple goal has rapidly become one of my favorite passions in life. Plus, it has to generate some rewards along the way.
I’m very proud of my 14 Broadway posters and the other four I haven’t framed yet; but I seem to be more proud of my growing collection of temple pictures which currently stands at two: Manhattan, New York and Washington, D.C., which I attended last night.