It’s not always about the temple you’re visiting, in this case to Portland Oregon Temple. Sometimes, it’s about the breakfast.
In this case, it came from McDonald’s at the Denver airport. Having left my place at 3:45 a.m. this morning to catch my 7 a.m. flight from Washington DC to Denver, I was thrilled to get a good breakfast once I got here!
I arrived at 8:30 a.m. My next flight (to Portland) isn’t until 4 pm so I was thrilled to find my special four-seats-in-a-row-without-armrests-so-I-can-lie-down spot was open. I quickly grabbed it, chomped down the breakfast, and took a two-hour nap. It was heavenly!
I have an appointment tonight to do initiatories in the Portland Oregon Temple at around 8 o’clock. In the meantime, I arranged for my rental car (which is going to be a midsize pick up truck for three days) for only $143! On this trip I am visiting the Portland, Medford, Columbia River, and Spokane temples in a three day period. Plus, lots of driving! Love the truck and the unlimited miles!
The round-trip airfare from DC to Portland was $157. That’s one of the criteria for doing these trips – – cheap!
The Portland Oregon Temple is beautiful – – and big! It’s nestled right off the freeway in a residential area with lots of tall pine trees around it. I did five initiatories tonight, including the four Cook brothers that were born in the 1800s in New Zealand. 
I went to the celestial room afterwards for about 15 minutes. It’s very big and is two-tiered. I went up to the top tier and just enjoyed the spirit of the room. A large painting of Christ is on both sides of the top tier. I think if you want to meet Him, you go to the area I was in. No one else was in those paintings; just Him. I believe that’s on purpose.
then an amazing thing happened. I walked down to the bottom tier just as a young lady temple worker walked in to relieve an older lady who had been there. Still impressed with the size of the temple, I walked over to the young lady and just commented on how big this temple was. We struck up a conversation and it turns out she was raised in Maryland until she was about 14. I asked what her name was. Then she pulled her hair back which had been covering her name tag. Susan Sigleer. I saw that last name and about died. “Do you have a brother on a mission in Washington DC?“ I asked her. “Yes,“ she said. “He’s in my ward!“ I commented. 
Elder Sigleer goes home in three weeks. It turns out he has four siblings and three of them were working in the temple last night. Also, his parents have worked in the temple but are currently taking a breather. However, on Wednesday night they come over and pick up their three young adult kids to drive them home. Consequently I hung around for about 20 minutes and met the whole family!
The father served a mission in South Korea. The oldest son went to Brazil. One daughter went to upstate New York. Another went to Farmington New Mexico. Then another went to West Las Vegas Nevada. And now the youngest brother is in Washington DC. On Wednesday nights Susan said they have family home evening at the temple! It’s quite a great tradition.
Then I took a photo with the whole family outside the front of the temple. Next, I texted it to Elder Sigleer and just commented on how you meet such nice people at the temple. He immediately caught on that it was his family!
Next, I met Sister Wahlstrom. She is an ordinance worker there. She and her husband served a mission in Iceland and knows my sister Lauren and her husband Bret who served there a few years ago. Such a small world! Then, I showed her a photo of the welcome home Icelandic cake that I had made for Bret and Lauren. She loved it! 
to cap off the evening just right, I found a Panda Express with a drive-through! 
I decided to head to the Medford Oregon temple right away, which is a 250 mile ride. Accordingly, I’ll tell you all about that one in my next post.
After visiting the other three temples, I am back in Portland ready to fly home. I have a few hours left, so I headed up to Columbia River gorge to check out some waterfalls, particularly Multnomah Falls!
When I arrived, I bought the largest cookie I’ve ever seen and a 16 ounce hot chocolate to help carry me through the steady mist. 
