This is a story about two people from different continents brought together by the sunshine state, their faith in God, and their dorkiness and love for each other

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Road trip to Orly

       Brian, Spencer and I decided to take a quick road trip to Orlando yesterday to attend a YSA Fireside where Elder Bednar is speaking. It was honestly worth the drive. We were definitely spiritually fed.
          For a brief introduction, Elder David A Bednar is a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was the president of Ricks College, now known as Brigham Young University- Idaho from 1997- 2004. He was born in Oakland, CA in 1952, and is currently 58 (he definitely doesn't look like it to me). He served his two-year mission in Southern Germany.
           Instead of just giving a talk where all we do is listen, he invited us to sort of a Q&A session. There were a couple of things that stood out to me:

  • Preparing for the temple
    • The temple is rich with symbolism
    • Inside the temple, focus on what you FEEL in order to remember what you see or hear
  • I need to start working on our Geneaolgy
  • Become DOCTRINALLY GROUNDED!
  • The power of Godliness is manifest through  the power of the priesthood
  • Don't take counsel from fear
              Afterwards, we didn't even dare try to shake Elder Bednar's hand because there was seriously a line. That was a pretty cool thing to see though. Also, I realized that I have never seen the Orlando temple at night and it was heavenly! I tried to take photos of it but my tiny digital camera definitely did not do it justice. I don't know what it is and I probably shouldn't even say this but I never thought of Orlando temple as the temple where I would get married in and I never thought it was as pretty as the other temples. However, last night changed it all. Maybe because of the fact that I am soon to enter the temple to be sealed and be married for eternity but whatever it is, I definitely had a different point of view of the Orlando temple. It's a divine place- a House of the Lord. 
              We had to leave Orlando asap because we had a long drive back ahead of us and we all had jobs around 6:30 in the morning. We didn't really acknowledge the possibility of traffic on a Friday night at Orlando. Needless to say, Spencer had to take us the back roads and decided to let the traffic be and take care of our empty tummies first. 
               We decided to go to Applebee's since we haven't gone there in a while. Worst idea. Worst Applebees I've ever gone to. Seriously, loud music, drunken people, cigarettes and profanity everywhere. This was not a "neighborhood place" to dine in AT ALL, it was more like an extension to a night club especially after being surrounded and taught by an apostle of the Lord. We lost our appetite right when we walked in. We only stayed because the workers were kind enough to do their best to accommodate us but even with their efforts, we were so close to walking out. They sat us in the patio so that we could actually hear each other and have a peaceful dinner but the negative atmosphere followed us, as a group of drunk customers huddled and hung out right by our table. Not only were we receiving second- hand smoke, we couldn't even filter the words out of their mouths. One girl talked about how her boyfriend walked in on her doing it with other guys. I mean, come on! We're eating here and where is your class woman?!  
               We ended up talking to the manager. Paid for our food and left STAT. On a good note, we were able to avoid the traffic jam only to find out that we were heading south instead of north. Eventually, we got home around 2am. Went straight to bed and passed out. 
                Btw, I finished Catching Fire (second series of The Hunger Games). It's so good and it's driving me crazy that I can't read the third book yet because Brian is still reading it. I read the second book in less than a week. Yay me!


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