Logan Temple thoughts

For our anniversary on Tuesday, May 12th, Wendy and I planned a temple trip.  We went to Logan Monday afternoon, got a motel room, and took Krysta to dinner.  On Tuesday morning, we did a family endowment each in the Logan temple. Then we drove to Brigham City and did an endowment in that temple in the afternoon.  We went to dinner with Dorothy in Ogden, then attended an Eagle Court of Honor for Eric that evening.  We stayed at the Alison and Quin’s that night, had breakfast with Wendy’s son Brian, then while I went to our dentist and got a tooth filled, Wendy had lunch with her sisters. I worked some with Wendy’s sister Sue on some family history things and we go home later afternoon on Wednesday.

Our visit to the Logan temple made me quite pensive.  I had the thought that almost 130 years ago my great-grandparents, George W. and Martha Ann Lufkin had been present in these same halls and rooms doing temple work for our ancestors, and I felt a strong kinship to them.  I found this bit of history about a family history and temple experience of Martha Ann’s, as summarized by my aunt Dorothy D. Hall:

     “In 1884, when the Logan Temple was dedicated, my grandparents, George W. and Martha Ann Lufkin, were living in Salt Lake City.  After making several long, tiring trips to Logan to do temple work for their loved ones, they decided  in 1888, to move to Logan to be close to the Temple.
     “My grandmother especially, was an ardent genealogist and faithful temple worker. But, once when her day's work at the Temple was finished and she was on her way to the dressing-room to lay aside her white clothing and dress for the street, she felt very discouraged and depressed.  She wondered if what she was doing was of any worth.  Did those for whom she was proxy care what she was doing, did they even know of the long hours spent in their behalf?  Maybe it was all of no use.
     “As she walked down the corridor, dejected and alone, she glanced up and saw a woman coming toward her, smiling happily.  She nodded and Grandma nodded in return.  After taking a few more steps, Grandma realized that the woman was in street clothing instead of white as was usual and turning to look at her again, she saw that the corridor was empty.  Wondering at this strange and sudden disappearance, Grandma continued on her way.
     “Not long afterwards, while sorting through some old family pictures that had been received from the east, she picked up one which she immediately recognized as the woman in the Temple corridor.  And when she turned it over to read the name written on the back, she found to her amazement and joy, it was the name of the woman whose work she had done in the Temple the day she was so discouraged.  It was the woman who had smiled at her and whose picture she held in her hand.  So, she was answered, they did know and some of them did care.”
(Dorothy D. Hall, “Histories of Parents and Grandparents of Kate Naomi Lufkin Davenport,” 1986, p. 34)