Tegucigalpa, Honduras Temple Dedication

Hands down the most AWESOME spiritual experience in my life was watching the way a country reacted to their first LDS Temple being erected.

See it up there on the hill?? This is the view most people had of it as it was being built.

I was SO blessed to be able to walk through with the locals and attend the ordination at our city stake center in Comayagua just a week or so later. I can't even think about it without turning into a blubbering mess.

This is the awesome group of guys I went with! Take away like six of them, and that was pretty much the size of our on base meetings on most Sundays. :)

Weeks later I got to hear the testimonies of the women I served with in young women's stand and bear their testimonies after being sealed to their families at ages 13, 16, and 17. The testimonies of families who saved and saved for bus tickets to make it there. The families who all prepared individually and together, to be worthy to enter the temple doors as soon as they possibly could.

Prior to this temple being erected, the families of Honduras had to save for YEARS to make it to the Guatemala LDS Temple to be sealed as a family. They would sleep on benches along the way, making sacrifices few would believe and for some, it was not a possibility.

There was a family in our ward, who had been saving for a long time and were growing close to their goal when they announced that this temple would be built. They would have the money to travel to Guatemala to be sealed just months before the Teguc. temple would be ready. They could have used the money they saved to fix up their home, pay school tuitions, a car, or many other things I'm sure they were in need of, knowing they could put off the sealing a few more months and go for a significant fraction of the cost. However, they discussed as a family, that every day was crucial. Every day that one of them could possibly be separated by tragedy or illness was not worth having to have someone else sit in for them at the sealing ceremony. They continued to save, and were sealed in the Guatemala City, Guatemala Temple a few weeks before the dedication of the Tegucigalpa, Honduras Temple. This was HUGE to me. It spoke wonders in a language I was unfamiliar with.
I BALLED listening to the testimonies of these families. All newly sealed with a passion for the gospel few youth have the opportunity to experience.

Families can be together forever. 

This is where the authority resides to 
make bonds in Heaven, and on Earth.
Family is worth EVERY sacrifice.