A Temple and A Twister

We had an exciting Sunday here in Kansas this week.
First, the Kansas City Missouri Temple was dedicated. The service was overseen by President Thomas S. Monson, the Prophet and current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the quorum of the twelve apostles attended also, along with Elders Hallstrom and Walker of the quorum of the seventies. For those unfamiliar with the administrative order of the church, I'll refer you here for a helpful explanation of those terms.

Alais sang in the choir for the dedication service. The dedication (there were actually three separate sessions to allow as many church members as possible to participate) was broadcast live to all the local meetinghouses because seating at the temple was so limited. It was a very special, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in such a service, especially to sing there in that tiny room right next to the prophet and his apostles. (though I'll admit, it was a little unnerving to sing right in Elder Hallstrom's ear. His chair was literally so close to me I had to keep reminding myself not to rest my hands on the back of his chair!) Little side note here, I wish I had had a chance to talk to Elder Hallstrom and his wife. They used to live in Hong Kong and I served for several months in their branch when I was there as a missionary. I don't know if they would remember me, but I certainly had several conversations with them both. If I could have picked one VIP to talk to that day, I think it would have been Sister Hallstrom. Of course, there was no opportunity at all, so I just flashed her a little smile before singing and hoped she might recognize me.

One really great thing for me was having my very good friend in the soprano section with me. Our boys play together all the time, she watches my kids whenever I have a voice lesson and we love getting to hang out together for real-life grown-up conversations while our little boys talk trucks and trains.
The meeting was joyful and the dedication so touching. There's a lot of Mormon history in this area, much of it pretty sad as the early Mormons had to flee the state to escape violent persecution. Seeing a beautiful temple standing right in Liberty, MO is hugely significant for Latter-Day Saints all over the world.

In completely unrelated news, we also had our first great adventure of the storm season. After naptime was over during that long stretch between afternoon and bedtime, we decided to take a family drive into the country. It had been a rainy day (you can see the cornerstone up there is all wet and weird-looking) but seemed to be clearing up by the time we went out driving. BUT...

...this is what we saw on our drive home. We looked out at the clouds and saw that one was starting to look pretty suspicious. We didn't have our camera with us, so I'm just borrowing this picture and video from folks who were actually prepared to capture the moment. 

Crazy, huh! I'd never seen a tornado before that night and I'm really ok if I don't see one again. (Fat chance living in Kansas, right?) The video really shows just about what we saw. We were further away, so we didn't get to see all that menacing swirly detail, but we definitely saw it change shape and move and turn into that really creepy finger at the end before dissipating.
By the time we got home, there was hail the size of ping-pong balls pounding at our car and we felt lucky not to have our windshield break. We got the kids inside and spent a cozy little hour in the basement watching Sesame Street and eating macaroni and cheese. All in all, it was a pretty exciting day.