The Bitter With The Sweet

Referring to the title of this post, I will start with the sweet.  For the past 14 months I have served as an ordinance worker in the Los Angeles Temple. My shift is on Wednesday mornings and I love working there. This past Wednesday (Feb. 15th) was my best day yet as an ordinance worker. A couple of months ago, I was asked by my Shift Coordinator to be on the Own Endowment Team. I jumped at the chance. It is roughly a 6 month assignment. The ordinance workers on this team work with the sisters who are coming to the temple for the first time to receive their own endowment. This doesn't happen often on our shift- so far only three times since I've been on the team, but I love it when it happens.  We have had one sister missionary come, one single sister who was a convert come, and this week we had a bride-to-be come through. She is getting married on Saturday.  She is a convert to the church and had no family members who were able to attend to enjoy the experience with her. However, the groom's family stepped right in to help make her first experience in the temple enjoyable and memorable.

Since I was assigned as 1st Follower on our team for that day, I was the one privileged to assist this bride-to-be through the veil at the end of the endowment session.  I found this to be a very sweet experience. I had to hold back the tears as she nervously, but faithfully went through that process with her fiance. Very sweet experience for me and one I will not soon forget.

Ok, now for the bitter.  While in the temple we had heard that it was raining really hard outside. I hadn't even thought to check the weather forcast so I didn't have an umbrella. I didn't even have a jacket, for that matter. I only had the suit-type jacket that went with my outfit. After our temple shift was over, the two sisters I had carpooled with and I went outside and we were pleasantly surprised that the rain had stopped, at least temporarily. We got in Monica's truck and started to head for home. However, it soon started to rain and it was coming down really hard. By the time we were about 1/2 way home I noticed that the rain looked a little slushy. I brought that to the attention of the other sisters.  The slush turned to snow.  This is kinda bad in Southern California because there isn't any snow removal equipment or trucks that drop salt or sand to prevent slipping. Also, the freeway we were on (14) is all uphill until we get to Palmdale, our bordering town.  It is not uncommon to have to close down the 14 during snowstorms. I was so hoping we could make it home before it got any worse. Anyway, some cars were having a difficult time getting any traction and some were sliding around (including us). Some had to just pull off to the side because they couldn't make it up the hills. Thank goodness Monica had just purchased a couple of new tires. Although they did some spinning, we were able to keep going slowly and didn't have to stop. At one point, when we were about 10-15 miles away from home, there was an accident that blocked all lanes of the freeway. Fortunately, we were able to take a freeway exit and take an alternate route home and made it safely. Our trip home took about an hour longer than normal, but we were just thankful that we were able to make it ok. 

At one point in the trip I decided to take some pictures with my cell phone. These pictures weren't taken during the worst part of the storm, but they will give you an idea of what we had to endure. I was in the back seat.

 The road wasn't too bad here, thank goodness

So, as you can see, Wednesday was a bitter-sweet day for me, but I am prepared to head back to the Los Angeles Temple next Wednesday to once again fulfill my responsibilities there.