Opening the Temple Gates

A few weeks ago President Strasburg came to visit our ward in Amherst. He currently serves in the Palmyra temple presidency. My mom had told me that he knew my dad and had always really liked him, so I introduced myself to him after the meeting. He was so nice and said really nice things about my parents. He then started talking to Spencer. He ended up giving Spencer his business card and told him to give him a call so that he could come and help him open the temple gates one day. Spencer was so excited. He talked about it non-stop for two days and told anyone who would listen that he was going to open the gates. He was so excited about having such an important job to do. He even wanted to bring the card to school the next day to tell his teacher.

We scheduled a time to go down and have Spencer open the gate on November 5. We met President Strasburg at his house across from the temple. He walked up and closed the gate so that Spencer could open it. He was so sweet with him and showed him the log home and talked about the temple and how it is on the original land the Smiths owned.

It was so fun to see Spencer be so excited about this and it was definitely a neat opportunity for him. President Strasburg encouraged us to go on a tour of the sites and walk through the Sacred Grove, which we did. It was a cool morning, but sunny and clear and beautiful. It was nice to go through the Grove in the fall - it seems like we are usually there in the summer.