A message from Chrystine Reynolds:
Journal, August 21, 2007.
Experiences surrounding Merrill Heward's Endowment and his sealing to Helen Watson Heward as well as my sealing to my parents (Helen and Merrill Heward) at the Nauvoo, Illinois Temple on August 21, 2007.
The day of Dad's Funeral -- August 29th, 2006 -- I spoke with my cousin, Sherron DeVos, and asked her if she and her husband Dave (whom Dad had once told that if anyone could persuade him to become active in the Church once more it would be Dave) would like to help me do Dad's Temple work on the one year anniversary of his death. I evidently reminded her of that request in my Christmas Card to them last December. (I didn't remember doing that; but Sherron definitely did!)
I had originally thought that we would do Dad's Temple work at the Winter Quarter's Temple where Jim and I serve as ordinance workers. I thought that Jim might be able to officiate over Dad's Iniatory, and that Jim and I might also be able to participate in Dad's Endowment session as the sessions' officiator and follower, since -- as Temple ordinance workers -- we are able to officiate in those capacities. My thinking was that in that case, both Jim and Dave would be able to participate in Dad's Temple work, and I might be more involved in Dad's Endowment session than I would be as a patron as well. I also planned to have Brother Harkness -- a wonderful sealer at the Winter Quarter's Temple -- whom I especially like -- do both Mom and Dad's sealing to each other and my sealing to them.
However, when Sherron called about a month ago to make plans for the event, she suggested that we meet at the Nauvoo Temple and do the ordinances there, instead, since it would be about six hours closer to their home in Tennessee and also because Dave had never visited Nauvoo. Jim said he wasn't disappointed about not being able to do the work at the Winter Quarter's Temple, so I said we'd be happy to do that.
(It is interesting to me as I write this, how the Lord always knows what is best for us. I had initially been somewhat disappointed that we wouldn't be doing Dad's work in the Winter Quarter's Temple as I had planned. However, although it would have been nice to have had Jim more involved in the ordinances, it ended up being much more appropriate for Dad and for our family to do those ordinances in Nauvoo.)
In choosing a Temple to perform Dad's ordinances in, I had not remembered that Dad's ancestors and mine had helped build the original Nauvoo Temple, and that that detail would mirror Mother having being endowed in the Temple her ancestors had helped build.
Also, although I'm sure that the Temple Presidency, etc., at the Winter Quarter's Temple would have tried to make sure our experiences with the ordinances we were performing that day were spiritual and lovely, their familiarity with Jim and I, I think, might have tended to lessen the impact that the kindness of virtual strangers at the Nauvoo Temple had on all of us.
The ordinance workers in the Nauvoo Temple focused a great deal of their attention on us that day. They seemed sincerely excited to be involved in our "day" and made an extraordinary effort to make sure that it was memorable for us -- from anticipating our arrival from the time of my phone call to the Temple that morning, to personally helping me with my Family Group Sheet, to escorting us everywhere we needed to be, and then to allowing us to perform our sealings in the sealing room where live sealings are typically performed. In essence, they did everything they could to make our experience in the Temple that day both lovely and meaningful.
Returning to my remembrances of the week before August 21st, Jim and I had scheduled a trip to Pittsburgh the weekend before the 21st of August -- the date of Dad's death and the date for the Temple work to be done. I wasn't worried about that because I'd reminded Jim that we had to be back home the night of the 20th so we could drive to Nauvoo the next morning and have plenty of time to do the work. Needless to say, I was a little dismayed when he told me we were scheduled to return to Des Moines at about noon on the 21st! Fortunately, we were able to exchange those tickets for some which had us returning very late on the evening of the 20th, so we THOUGHT everything would then go perfectly smoothly! (Oh, contraire!)
We had absolutely no hitches on the way to Pittsburgh -- OF COURSE -- but when we got to the airport on Monday evening for our return flight to Des Moines, we were told our plane was delayed; and we probably wouldn't be able to make our connection in Chicago -- thus making it impossible to get to Des Moines that night. Everything the American Airline's agent, Stephen Jackson, did to try to get us to Chicago in time on another carrier was futile. Finally, I suggested he send us through St. Louis as we could then either fly to Des Moines early the next morning -- or -- if worst came to worst -- we could drive to Nauvoo from St. Louis in less than the time it would have taken us to drive there from Ames. (Of course, I had forgotten about the minor problem that our car was in Des Moines, not St. Louis!!) Jim did remember that little detail, so he made sure we had the plane tickets from St. Louis to Des Moines in hand before we left the ticket counter!
We also hoped that the weather problems that had caused our plane to be delayed getting into Pittsburgh wouldn't occur in St. Louis in the morning. (I wondered as all this was happening if SOMEONE -- who shall remain nameless -- had had anything to do with the "Murphy" experiences we were having concerning this flight!)
It was a good thing we changed our tickets when we did, as the flight we had been supposed to fly to Chicago on was officially canceled the moment we walked away from that counter!
Another "Murphy" incident which had happened in conjunction with doing Dad's Temple work occurred the Sunday before we left for Pittsburgh, as I had had trouble trying to get a disc put together to take to the Temple to do Dad's work. Several friends who work in the Family History Center in our stake had tried to help me with that as the Family History Center's computer's date had to be put forward so it would accept a submission for an ordinance which would be performed exactly one year from Dad's death date -- which, of course, hadn't happened yet (the date -- not the death)!!! We tried over and over for two hours during Sunday School and Relief Society and Priesthood Meeting to get Temple Ready to cough up the submissions; and each time it cleared the sealings but not Dad's endowment. (Ask me HOW it did that as you have to be endowed before you can be sealed!) Needless to say -- that particular snafu made me wonder if the above "unnamed person" was trying to frustrate the progress on performing said ordinances. The later problems with our flight from Pittsburgh to Chicago just further solidified that observation!)
Because we could never get all the ordinances cleared that Sunday in the Family History Center, we finally gave up and decided to fall back on the Family Group Sheet which works if a live ordinance is going to be performed -- i.e., my sealing to my parents! (I had been able to do my Mother's Endowment on March 15 of 2004, because I was the proxy for her ordinance, and my name appeared on the Family Group Sheet with hers, but I wondered if that would work with my Dad's Endowment, etc., since I -- as a woman -- couldn't perform that ordinance; and Dave wasn't directly related to Dad.) Thus, I called the Nauvoo Temple the following week to make sure we would be able to do those ordinances with a Family Group Sheet and with Dave as the proxy since I thought then that I wouldn't do my own sealing to Mom and Dad on that day; and thus that we wouldn't actually be performing a live ordinance from that Family Group Sheet. (Complicated enough???) They assured me that that would be fine. I then had to call back a few moments later to find out if we needed an appointment for any of the ordinances -- which we didn't need to have. All this information took a while to get as it required speaking to several different people, but it alerted the Temple office to my situation which -- as events later unfolded -- was a good thing to have happened!)
I went home from the Family History Center that Sunday with a partially filled out Family Group Sheet; and then had my friend (Marilyn Forgey -- our Stake Family History Specialist) help me put more of the information I had inadvertently left at home the previous Sunday on the sheet. I then took that sheet home, downloaded Paf 5 from the lds.org web site, and after calling several relatives, and typing the sheet over and over, had TWO beautiful copies of the fully completed sheet ready to go just before we left for Pittsburgh -- which I then purposefully left on Jim's dresser since I was PLANNING on returning home to Ames before driving to Nauvoo on the 21st!
(It was a good thing I had typed that information so many times, because I still had it in my head later in Nauvoo when I desperately needed to have it there!!!)
We got to St. Louis with no problem and made it to Des Moines the next morning, landing about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. As soon as we were on the ground, I called the Temple to ask them if I would be able to hand write a family group sheet since the one I had so carefully typed the week before was sitting home on Jim's dresser and we wouldn't have time to go home to get it before driving to Nauvoo. They assured me that that would be no problem, so I then called Sherron and Dave -- who were already in Nauvoo enjoying the sights and the "sites" -- and told them what time we would probably arrive there.
We got to the Temple, and Sherron and Dave had just arrived at the Temple as well. As soon as we arrived, it was obvious that because of the two phone calls I made to the Temple before leaving for Pittsburgh to find out how to proceed with Dad's work, etc., as well as my phone call that morning, the Temple staff was "on alert" and waiting to help us. (Fortunately, there weren't a lot of patrons there at the time as many of the usual summer tourists had gone home to get kids back in school, etc., so the Temple staff were able to devote most of their attention to us.)
Sister Nysetvold -- a six-month Temple Missionary from The Woodlands in Texas -- approached me as soon as they realized that I was the person who had called about needing to put together a family group sheet to do Dad's work. We were short on time as it was about 2:30 p.m., and we needed to make the 3:00 p.m. session so we could get Sherron and Dave to the "Rendezvous at Old Nauvoo" performance they had tickets for that evening. (They were leaving to go home to Tennessee the next morning; and we didn't want them to miss that performance!)
Sister Nysetvold immediately took me into the office area and procured a couple of blank Family Group Sheets. I filled one out (using the aforementioned information which had been duly impressed upon my brain throughout my many typings) and then the Assistant Temple Recorder -- Brother Robert Spurgeon -- whose wife I had immediately recognized as a fellow ex- Restricted Service Ordinance Worker (RSOW) from the Chicago Temple -- they also later worked as Ordinance Workers in the St. Louis Temple before the Nauvoo Temple was built -- typed the information into the Temple computer and completed the submission and papers we would need to do the work. In the meantime, Jim, Dave and Sherron went upstairs to the dressing rooms to get ready for the session, and Dad's initiatory, etc.
As soon as the submission was finished, Sister Nysetvold escorted me up to the second floor so I could get ready for the 3:00 p.m. endowment session -- which was just minutes away. Sherron was already dressed in her whites and had the New Name for the person she was to be proxy for by the time I arrived in the dressing room area. The person Sherron was to be proxy for was named Annie Gentry. Because of her preoccupation with Dad's endowment, etc., Sherron didn't notice the exact date of Annie's birth or the place of her birth other than that she had been born in the mid-1800's and that she was born somewhere in the US. (I thought it was interesting on glancing at Sherron's name slip once we were seated in the Creation Room that Annie's last name was Gentry, which was the name of the Missouri county Dad's ancestors had lived in before being forced to leave their homes and move to Far West prior to the Saints' expulsion from there to Nauvoo in 1838.) The person who's Temple File Name I received was Mary Concepcion from Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico -- which is located in central Mexico about 120 miles from Mexico City and which is known for its thermal spas. She was christened in 1743. The New Name for the day was one that would have pleased Dad and his extended family as it was the name of one of his (and my) female ancestors. I thought that was a nice coincidence.
Sister Nysetvold and one of the Temple Matrons walked us up the squared staircase near the women's dressing area so we could go immediately into the Endowment session as soon as Dave and Jim arrived. After Sister Nysetvold said we were planning on attending the 3:00 p.m. session, an ordinance worker went to check and see if Dave had finished doing Dad's initiatory ordinance and if Jim and Dave were both dressed for the endowment session. The Temple President then actually held the session for several minutes so we could make that 3:00 session! (Something most officiators -- and especially Temple Presidencies and Matrons don't like to do if they can avoid it!) That just showed me once more how much they were doing to try to accommodate our needs that day! Sister Nysetvold told me then that she would meet us in the Celestial Room at the end of the session to direct us to a sealing room.
Sherron and I were ushered into the Creation Room; and Jim and Dave came in moments later. I immediately felt a great spiritual warmth as well as a feeling of peace the moment I sat down in the Creation Room. I wasn't sure whether the warmth came from Maria -- the person I was performing the endowment for that day -- or from Mom or Dad, or from all three; but it was a lovely feeling regardless of the source.