Gila Valley Temple Trip

While planning some summer activities for our Relief Society sisters to enjoy, we had the idea of taking a day trip to one of the Arizona temples that we don’t frequently visit.  We chose the Gila Valley temple and began making plans. 

It seemed like at every turn we were questioned,  “Why go all the way (a 3 hour trip each way) to the Gila Valley when there is a temple in your own back yard?”.

We started out saying things like, “It will be an adventure”, “It sounds fun”, and “It’s something we haven’t done before”.  However, after being asked numerous times, we decided perhaps we needed to really think about this activity.  Why were we considering it?  What did we want the sisters to experience and gain on this trip?  Was it worth the time commitment and expense?  Was it really something we felt that our Heavenly Father would want us to do? 

As we thought and prayed about it we felt the Lord’s approval and came up with several important goals for this trip.  First, we felt that it would be good for the sisters to really have to sacrifice an entire day to going to the temple.  We are very blessed to live only 10 minutes from the Mesa temple.  Many women in the church have to plan and save and dedicate large amounts of time and money to be able to visit the nearest temple to them.  By making this effort, we hoped that our women would be more grateful for the availability of the temple and the 3 hours total it usually takes us to go to the temple would be a little less daunting. 

We also felt that the time we would be able to spend together as sisters, traveling to and from the temple and while there, would be a good bonding experience.  Seldom do we get to really visit with one another and touch on more than the bare basics of what is happening in our lives.  With these two main goals in mind we continued to move forward.

 It seemed as though things still didn’t readily fall into place and there were setbacks and challenges along the way, but we pressed on.  When we looked at our schedule we determined that the best endowment session for us to attend would be at 1:15 PM.  As we researched this though we discovered that this session was done only in Spanish.  The majority of us were English speakers, but we determined that this too could be a positive learning experience and we could make it work if the temple had enough headsets for all of us.  The temple assured us that they could accommodate our group and that they would be happy to have us there.

We originally had 24 sisters and a few husbands sign up to attend.  We arranged drivers and had just enough seats for everyone.  The relief society president was planning on transporting 7 sisters in her vehicle.  A few days before we were to go she decided to have the tires on her car checked and rotated.  Much to her disappointment, she was informed that 2 of her tires were unsafe and that she shouldn’t even drive to Phoenix on them.  In addition, the tires she needed would have to be ordered and wouldn’t be available until the next week.  We were down a large vehicle and didn’t know what to do.  However, just the day before a sister who was not originally planning on attending had called and asked if she could go. As the relief society president pondered on whom she could ask to drive, this sister came to mind.  She had a van that she was willing to drive and we were good to go again.

Since we were going to be gone all day we had decided to provide lunch for everyone.  We were just planning to eat at the picnic pavilion located close to the temple.  We knew that it was July and it would be hot, but thought we could make it work.  One of the sisters called a couple of days before the trip and was extremely worried about the excessive heat forecast and felt that we needed to make other arrangements.  We considered finding a church building that we could have access to, but as we thought about what we should do our president was impressed to go a different route. 

There is a former ward member, in her nineties, who moved into her daughter’s home in Thatcher a few years ago.  When we first began to plan this trip we thought that it might be nice for a few of us to visit her while we were in the area, and even got a detailed map to her home from one of the other sisters who had been to visit in the past.  As the time drew closer though we realized that we didn’t really have time to fit in a visit and let the idea pass.  The relief society president felt very strongly that she should ask if we could eat lunch at this sister’s home. She was hesitant to essentially invite 20+ people to lunch, even though we would be providing the food, but the feeling persisted and she started making phone calls.  It took a few tries and a couple of days to finally connect with the daughter, but she was very willing to have us descend upon them in force the next day.   What a sweet, gracious relief society sister.   We all had such a pleasant time in her home and enjoyed renewing acquaintances.  It turned out that not only our former ward member, but her daughter as well, knew some of the sisters that came.  When we got ready to leave, the daughter pulled us aside and confided that her mom had been having a difficult time and that this visit had really perked her up.  She felt it was just what she needed and thanked us for coming. 

It was amazing to us how everything turned out the way it was supposed to in so many different ways.  We believe that we accomplished our original goals and some of Heavenly Father’s plans as well. Many of the sisters commented that it was valuable for them to see how others sacrificed to fit temple attendance into their lives and that they were grateful they lived so close to the temple.  It was wonderful to see strong friendships formed and strengthened in each vehicle during the journey.

We truly felt the Lord’s help and approval numerous times throughout this experience.  One sister felt inspired to go to the temple at the last minute and her vehicle was the one we needed to make the trip work.

Another sister felt inspired that the park wasn’t where we should eat lunch and several lives were blessed because of the change that was made.

At our gas station pit stops we attracted a lot of attention and were able to share our love for the temple and its importance and to engage in some simple missionary work. 

We used every available translating headset that the temple owned, but our one Spanish-speaking sister was touched by the opportunity to attend a session in her native language with all of her relief society sisters. 

It really was  a wonderful and fulfilling experience for all who attended and a day well spent.