Families Can Be Together Forever

I had a bunch of (what I thought was) witty front matter, but I'm going to skip it and just start posting about our trip. It was too amazing. (And don't be fooled by all these words. There are pictures at the bottom.)

Here's the story: Mike's sister and her husband have had a little girl in their family for almost a year and a half (she's four weeks younger than Katie) but she was only their foster child. Happily for all of us, she officially joined the family about a week and a half ago. (That was very exciting, but Mike and I were still driving because he only got one day off of work. So we weren't there for that part of the story.) But the really exciting part happened the next day (when we were there.)

I realize that most of you who read my blog (or all, because you probably consist of my mom, Mike's mom, and several other relatives who are just looking for pictures of Katie) are LDS. Just in case some of you aren't, I'm going to explain.

In our church, we believe that the family is an eternal principle. It is the foundation of the church, of society even. It's so important that in 1995, the leaders of our church came out with The Family: A Proclamation to the World, explaining exactly what we believe the family means and why it is so important to us. And even though that was 17 years ago, it remains one of the most widely referenced pieces of literature used by church members because we hold the family so sacred. And if families are so important, how can they end when we die? That just seems wrong, doesn't it?

Luckily, that's why we have the temple. In the temples, worthy members of the church can come to learn about the Lord and participate in ordinances, both for themselves and for those who have gone before, such as baptism for our ancestors who have died without the gospel. The highest of these ordinances is the sealing ordinance, in which families are sealed together for time and for all eternity. Many couples are married in the temple, and the children that are born later to them are automatically sealed to them. The real miracle, though, is what happens when children come to the family who weren't born in the covenant.

So yes, we may have missed the adoption in the court house. But we were able to go the next day to the Portland Temple with Abby and her parents and brother to see her sealed to them. Her big brother, Spencer, even got to come into the temple for the ceremony. It was beautiful. Now Abby is part of their family just as if she had been born into it originally, and is sealed to them eternally.


Enough talk! Here are some pictures at the temple after the sealing and at the party we had the rest of the day. (Amy, if you want any of the ones that are (slightly) edited, let me know.) And yes, I will add a couple comments. Don't get antsy.

This first one just made me chuckle. "Mommy! I don't want to hold still and smile any more! I wanna run around! Aaaaaahhh!"

This one may or may not be that cute. It's just the only one where all the cousins were facing my direction at the same time. Also, apparently I'm related to a not-so-discreet Spiderman.

Here's Mike and his dad. I TOTALLY should have gotten Mike's grandpa in the picture with them. Three generations!

Sumo hug!

Welcome to the family, Abby!