For the last 22 months the Atlanta Georgia temple has been closed for extensive renovations. Last Saturday, April 9, was the first day of a 3 week open house. The temple is open to the public to come and tour the inside of this beautiful building. We were so excited to go as a family, and let our children get a taste of the sweet spirit in The House of the Lord.
We knew Grandma and Grandpa had an afternoon flight today, so a few weeks ago we had gotten tickets to tour the temple this morning. We kept the kids out of school for an extended Spring Break trip, and drove the hour and a half to the temple. The outside of it looks relatively the same as it did before, with the beautiful statue of Moroni standing atop it. They added some beautiful flower gardens on the outside, redid the annex next to the temple, and completely redid the interior.
We had heard that Saturday was super busy, so we weren’t sure what to expect for our tour. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad, we just had to wait a short time, and then were able to tour the inside, and enjoy the outside grounds. This bench is part of a new sitting garden at the back of the temple.
Ryan
Erika
Our cloudy day ended up being gorgeous. It was sunny, not to hot, and a nice breeze to cool us off. All the kids were so attentive as we entered the temple. We watched a short video in the church building next to the temple about temples, and Scott was so excited to see so many temples. He kept shouting out, “There is temple” or “There is Jesus. There is two Jesus (when he would see another picture of Him”. He was very reverent as we walked through the temple with his arms folded tightly. All the kids thought the big chandeliers were the prettiest thing there. Some of the stain glassed windows they used had pieces of crushed up crystals from the former chandelier that hung there. It was neat to see a bit of our old temple still there. The windows were similar to the ones here by the front door.
When we drove up to the temple we realized how glad we were to have “Our” temple back. The hour and a half was so much nicer than the three hours to Birmingham. We felt lucky to have a temple that was at least 3 hours away, but man did 1 1/2 hours feel good.
After we were done with our tour, we said our good-byes to Grandma and Grandpa and let them go to catch their plane. We took a detour to the LDS bookstore that is close to the temple and got a few things for the kids. They were sure we had their bigger list of things for when Aaron and I come back in a couple weeks to help out with the touring of the temple. We were glad we got to share such a special day as a family.
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