Trek to the Temple & Justice 1st Time

Our Stake Presidency has been planning a big Trek to the Temple for this weekend. They scheduled it for a Friday and asked everyone to sacrifice and make the effort to attend. They scheduled all the wards at different times and setup for us to rotate and watch each others kids at the Stake Center after our time in the Temple.
We decided to get up early Friday morning (Brett took the day off & we kept the kids home from school) and head down to the Billings Temple in time to make it there by 11:30. We even drove through the clouds to get there. LOL

It was an extra special experience for our family because it happened to be Justice's 1st time inside the Temple. Since he turned 12, he was able to participate in the Baptisms for the Dead. Brian Payne was the Bishopric member in charge of our youth group so he pulled some strings so that Brett & I could be there with Justice & Liberty. How neat! I can't tell you how amazing it is to watch your kids make righteous choices and to be able to be there to watch them in the Temple. There's nothing like it! It turned out that 23 of our Youth came to participate in the Temple. Wow! {The youth groups before and after us only had 3 to 6 kids) It made it so it was a lot of waiting but so inspiring that so many would make the effort to come!

What a beautiful day at the Temple!

It was the 1st time for all three of these boys- TJ Smith (Fife's boy), Justice Seamons & Caleb Tubbs

So glad we could be there for Justice's 1st time!

It also turned out to be Jada Pierson's 1st time. Her family couldn't come down so we drove her down with us. This is the 2nd time that Liberty has been able to be there with her friends on their first trip to the Temple. SO special!

So fun to be at the Temple together & with friends! Can't wait until Victoria & Glory can join us.

P.S. There was a mis-communication about child care so we ended up leaving the girls & the Payne kids together at the Church without people to watch them. (The group of youth that was supposed to watch our kids got dropped off at the wrong Church building.) They eventually worked it out but we have some pretty awesome kids that would look out for each other while we were gone.

SIDENOTE: We calculated. It will be cutting it close but there is a slight chance that we will ALL be able to go to the Temple the 1st time that Glory can go. But Liberty will turn 19 a couple months before that. There is a chance that she would already be gone on a Mission before Glory turns 12. The next year Justice would turn 18 and then leave on his mission & be gone for 2 years. We're hoping that Liberty's mission call comes after June 2020 or it won't be until 2023 that our whole family could go to the Temple together. Oh trickiness of timing!