Friday evening. Alone. Waiting for Mark. Eager. Peaceful (rare).

This week has been fruitful. Spending it in Colorado was a beautiful experience. I missed Mark constantly, but yet missing him reminded me of all the reasons I love him. God forbid I ever become complacent in my relationship with him. So I was grateful for the reminder. I loved being with my siblings. I kept the tone simple, non-authoritative. They’re all older now, and don’t need me hovering over their every move. I felt as though I strengthened bonds with every one of them. I had individual talks with each that I now treasure. Rebecca is developing her sense of self. She is confident and coming into her beauty with grace. She is becoming more beautiful with time. In many ways, she is as I was at her age. She likes to tease me about where I am in life ( i.e. “old” and married.) I think she admires me though. Margaret is learning to laugh, to cultivate a sense of humor. To take joy in expanding her mind. She needs to learn to manage stress though, to not take everything so seriously. I was probably like her in that way. I wonder what kind of adult she’ll be. She’s different . . . Nathan is also seeming more mellow, a welcome change. His tone is easier, his laugh quicker, his posture more relaxed. He’s been accepted into a few universities. He’s eager for his future to begin already. He always was too intellectually mature for his emotional self. Maybe the two versions are now reconciling. Bruce was . . . delightful. I tucked him in each night, watch him say his prayers. He’d wrap his arms around my neck for hugs. A few times he had small temper tantrums, and they always ended so quickly, leaving him totally remorseful and contrite. He seems so small, and yet he’s growing so fast. Each one of my siblings are an odd blend of wisdom, immaturity, and curiosity. None of them quite at home in their skins. Much how I felt, until recently.

Greg came home Tuesday night. We went to the airport to meet him and my parents. Two years in England have obviously served him well in many ways, perhaps receiving as much as he gave. He’s filled out some, though not an ounce of body fat on him anywhere. His eyes are older. He views me a bit with suspicion, not yet ready to accept that I am Married. As they arrived in the main terminal, everyone was smiling. Hugs all around. Crowds watched curiously, noting the young man in business suit and nametag greeted as though he’d been long lost, but now found. We were such an oddity in that airport. Afterwards, at the Italian restaurant, I once again felt the keen obviousness of our Mormon-ness. His nametag, our large family. Obviously not as They Are, filing past the tables filled with two or three. Always the restaurant must quickly shove together a few small tables to accommodate us, and the requisite waiter approaching cautiously, as though our numbers mean we cannot also be civil and easy to please. And Joe not even with us. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk with Greg in the less than 24 hours I was home at the same time with him. But I can see he has changed, for the better. I am proud of him and what he has accomplished, proud that he devoted two years to serve Christ. I am proud of my entire family. I’m glad Greg is home again.

Flying into SLC, I felt a familiar sense of dislike viewing the Utah terrain coming into focus below me. If Mark weren’t there, and family, I would find an excuse to leave quickly. But coming down into the airport and seeing the way Mark’s face absolutely lit up when he saw me, watching the way he kept glancing at me all night, unable to keep from grinning, and feeling his arms wrapping so securely around me . . . I am glad to be home. Wherever he is, I can find no room to complain. He had roses to surprise me, the first time he’s ever done so. Very beautiful. He’d cleaned the apartment. He works so hard to ensure my happiness. It humbles me. I love him.

The February Ensign focused on temples; a timely topic for me given my frustrations and weaknesses. But I’m coming out of my disillusionment. I’d like to think it a sign of new maturity, a new spiritual phase of growth that allows me to view the temple as it should be viewed, coming into a place that the temple’s depth selects out so many from being. That is my goal, to be sure. I would never like to say that my doubts won out, but rather that I prevailed. And so I had a freshly inquisitive state of mind as I read the articles in the magazine. The following quote jumped out:

Did Joseph Smith reinvent the temple by putting all the fragments – Jewish, Orthodox, Masonic, Gnostic, Hindu, Egyptian, and so forth – together again? No, that is not how it is done. Very few of the fragments were available in his day, and the job of putting them together was begun, as we have seen, only in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Even when they are available, those poor fragments do not come together of themselves to make a whole; to this day the scholars who collect them do not know what to make of them. The temple is not to be derived from them, but the other way around . . . That anything of such fulness, consistency, and perfection could have been brought forth at a single time and place – overnight, as it were – is quite adequate proof of a special dispensation.”
- Hugh Nibley, “What Is a Temple,” in Volume 4 – Mormonism and Early Christianity

The more I read Hugh Nibley, the more impressed I am . . .

Anyway, I love that quote. It explains one of the reasons why I love Mormonism. It pulls together the best of ancient religions and the best of modern. In other words, the truths that have resonated in a million forms throughout all the history of the earth find their resonance in the ordinances and doctrines of the LDS church. Plain and precious indeed. And hence it is – not the only true church, – but the only true and living church. An important distinction.