Michael's birthday temple and pie

We had a wonderful family gathering on President’s Day, February 20th. A little of what made it wonderful was that it happened without my prompting or pushing. I have a pleasant feeling when members of our family seem committed and motivated to continue traditions that we have tried to establish. This event was our traditional February celebration of Michael’s birthday, with temple session and then gathering for pizza and cherry pie, his favorites.

We met this time at the Salt Lake temple at 9 am, and did sealings of family names. Besides Wendy and me, in attendance were Alison and Quin, Bruce and Angela, Matthew and Kim, Emilie (Scott was with the kids), Nathan and Gloria, and Andrew and Britain. Kim had made the arrangements and had also sorted the cards into families. I was surprised when the sealer performed the sealing of all the children to their parents in each family at the same time. The first family we did was for Robert Poor and Martha Barnes and involved eight children. Wendy and I were proxy for the parents, and we had enough family members present to enable the sealing of all of their eight children, three boys and five girls, as a single ordinance. As the ten of us knelt together at the alter, I felt such a spiritual rush, that I was impressed to conclude that this family welcomed our work to seal them togther as an eternal family, and I was also proud and happy regarding of our own family group.

I had never been a part of a sealing session before in which sealings of children to parents were performed in family groups rather than individually, and it was quite satisfying. We did sealings for a number of family groups in this manner. The sealer, Brother Richards, said that performing sealings in the way was an option given to temple presidents.

After the temple, we drove to South Weber to Angela’s for the pizza and pie. It was nice to see the grandchildren. Before we ate, Alison gave a nice tribute to Michael. A special treat was seeing Katrina and her fiancé, Troy. He seems like a fine young man. I am impressed that he seems motivated to be at our family gatherings. Other news: Alyssa reported that she has been accepted for college at BYU.
(Birthday pictures at ages 1,3,4,7,7,8,9,11)