Linli's Sealing....

No words can describe this amazing day!  Let me start a few months back.   When we brought Linli home this summer, we had 2-1/2 weeks before Josh would be leaving on his mission.  As you can imagine, our life was pretty chaotic.   We had a farewell to get ready for, a trip to the temple with Josh, family pictures, extended family pictures, making sure josh had everything he needed packed and ready to go, and also just praying and hoping that Linli could survive the adjustment and not totally wonder what kind of life she had been thrown into.   

We were truly overwhelmed and humbled by the outpouring of love, the generosity of others, and for the huge blessing of watching Linli adjust and fit in seamlessly like she was right where she belonged.    We truly witnessed many miracles and even though she only had such a short time with Josh they made an incredible bond….one that is so strong she still kisses his pictures and tells anyone who asks that she loves her brother Josh and that he is on a mission.    

The one thing that left us all feeling a little incomplete was that we were not able to take Linli to the temple to be sealed to us.   As hard as we tried, we just couldn’t make it work.  There weren’t enough hours in the day nor did we feel like she was quite ready for that yet.   We finally decided we would have to figure it out later and felt like it was the right thing to just take it off our plates for the time being.   

As the months started passing after Josh left, I couldn’t help but feel like we should be getting a date set up for the temple.   Every time I would think about it and try to get serious about it, it just didn’t feel right.   I thought maybe it was just me feeling like our family was incomplete with Josh being gone and that I needed to just buck up and get it done.  I talked with Russel and we decided we should ask Josh how he felt.   If he wanted us to wait I would be willing to do that.   I just figured if something happened to us, someone would do the work for us.    But I still was feeling uneasy about all of it.  

A few weeks passed and I kept forgetting to mention it to Josh.   Well pretty soon I got an email from Josh asking if we had sealed Linli to our family yet.  I was kind of surprised but just said that we hadn’t because it just hadn’t felt right for some reason and we wanted to talk to him about it.   

He then told me he had felt prompted that week to ask about it.   He also told me some of his missionary friends had been allowed to travel to the Mesa or Gilbert area with some of their investigators that were getting sealed.   Just to give you a little background, our family lived in Gilbert for 5 years.   When they built the temple there, our family was able to attend the open house and just last spring some of our children were able to do baptisms for the dead.   This temple has been special to us since they announced it.   Going through the temple in Gilbert was so special to me and Josh knows it is my favorite temple.   

Anyway, Josh told me he had felt prompted to let me know of these special circumstances and said if I were to write to the mission president, he may allow him to be there.   Of course I wasted no time and the mission president had my email in hand within about 30 minutes of my email from Josh.   

As I wrote the email, I gave the mission president every excuse or reason to turn me down.  I did not want to do anything that would divert or take away from the missionary efforts or anything that could distract from Josh’s purpose as a missionary.   As i read the mission president’s response tears of gratitude and understanding streamed down my face.   There was no hesitation, no reservation, no uncertainty.   He simply said, “we will have Elder McKenna available on that day and I will bring him to the temple personally.”   As i tried to wrap my head around this, I felt truly humbled and blessed.   I realized right then that as truly important as my son’s mission is, an eternal family is at the very core of what he is teaching.     My son is out trying to bring souls unto Christ so they can become forever families, the exact thing we are trying to do for our family.   What could possibly be more important than that?  

I felt like the Lord was telling me that this is not something we should be procrastinating, this is not something we shouldn’t be focusing our whole heart on right now, and that for our family on this one short afternoon, my son will have nothing more important to do than to be with our eternal family sealing the last little sweetheart to our totally crazy imperfect family for eternity.   

I truly felt the weight and depth of how important building an eternal family is.   I realized that if we had decided to wait, we could miss out on many blessings that the Lord has for our family.   I know there is great strength in having our family sealed.    I know with all my heart that we need the spiritual protection that is only offered through the temple.   I am so grateful to a Heavenly Father who  is aware of our every need and also for a faithful missionary son listening to the promptings of the Spirit.  

This really was one of the very best days of my life.   I think everyone felt the same.   Early that morning Uncle Matt took some of the older kids to do baptisms for the dead before the sealing.   Little did we know Josh had been there all morning (believe me I would've been there at 6 a.m. had I known).   As we walked into the temple, he saw us from the temple grounds.   Russel and I didn't know that and we were taken into a room to go over paperwork.   As Josh walked into the temple, the kids were in the waiting room and could see him through the fogged glass doors.   They were having a fit but the temple workers didn't realize what was going on and so they weren't able to get out and see him.   As we were escorted back to the children's area, one of the workers whispered to me, "I just saw your son, he looks great."   Wow, I completely lost it.   Just the thought of him being in the same place was enough to do me in.   As we took the kids up to get ready, we left them with the temple works while Russel and I went to get ready.   As we came out of the room, someone said we have someone over here waiting to see you.  I looked up and there was my sweet son.  I couldn't hardly contain myself.   I ran over to him and gave him the biggest hug and just sobbed.  It was such an awesome feeling to see him.  I just kept hugging him until someone finally said we had better go get ready.   One thing I had thought about many times prior to this day was how Linli would react when she saw Josh.   During those two weeks after she came, her and Josh seemed to bond so well and she really just seemed to fall in love with him.   Then after she left she would look at his picture often and even cry at night sometimes saying she missed him.   I wondered if when the time came for her to actually seem in real life if things would be different....maybe she would be super shy, etc.   Well as Russel and I walked into the sealing room I just melted.  Here was Josh sitting in a chair and Linli had climbed up on his lap and had both arms wrapped around his neck.   Then I started bawling again.   It's one of those moments that will forever be imprinted in my heart.   And her and Meili didn't leave his side the entire day.   In fact, i thought his arms were going to fall off from carrying both of them around the temple grounds for so long.   

We were then able to take him to lunch and got to spend another couple hours with him.   It was incredible.   We will forever be grateful to a loving mission president who truly knows that Families are Forever and that is the most important work on this earth.