Brother Down! and other temple favorites.

One of my dad's favorite things of all time was the temple. Arguably the thing that made him happier than anything else in this life was when he was able to go to the temple with all of his children. He circled all of his children in a big hug in the celestial room and said that there was no greater accomplishment than that in his life. He would have been so happy to see Alicia go on to marry Ryan and David go on to marry Britta Bergstrom, but he will soon enough.

Now Dad was always interesting to go to the temple with. Here's one of my favorite stories as told by my mom when Davide first went through to take out his endowments.

"... The only thing David had to say for sure about the temple is that Dad isn't allowed in there anymore. I don't know if you can blame the stroke or not but since then he has become very careless about where he chooses to pass gas and he certainly doesn't try to keep them quiet anymore. Any time he strains trying to stand up or something out they rip. He ripped two or three more really loud ones in the temple and even David was so ashamed. Grandpa poked him in the ribs with his elbow in disapproval. Poor Dad. But I agree with David. He probably needs to be banned from the temple.
Let me tell you what happened last Friday. Michelle and I and your Dad decided to go do a session in the temple. Well, it takes Dad a really long time to get dressed and up to the chapel and he has a hard time walking all the snow and ice. So we dropped him off at the door of the temple and Michelle said, "Okay Dad, we're giving you a head start, let's see if you can get up to the chapel before us." Bad, bad thing to say to him. Se w park the car, go in the temple, get dressed and head on up to the chapel. We still wait another 15-20 minutes for Dad. Eventually he comes hobbling in with his "I did a bad thing" face. He sits down between the 2 of us and mumbles, "Competition isn't a good thing in the temple" Then he proceeds to tell us the whole sad story. As he was in his booth in the locker room trying to change, he was hurrying and lost his balance and fell down. He only had his white shirt and garment bottoms on. As he fell he slid along the wall and it pulled his bottoms down below his butt. He then fell on the door on his bad arm. He is on the floor and can't get up! There is a temple worker outside his door who sees that he has fallen and starts yelling, yes yelling, no quiet temple voice here, as loud as he can "BROTHER DOWN, BROTHER DOWN!!!!!" He probably yelled hit 9 times! Pretty soon Dad looks out from underneath the booth and there are about 14 feet standing there. Every temple worker from a 5 mile radius had come running! They couldn't get in to help him because he was laying against the door blocking it from opening. So they are just shoving on the door as hard as they can trying to get in to help him but they are only hitting him hard on the head each time they try to push the door open! Itwas pretty comical. Poor Dad. He is so humble and has such a great send of humor that he can laugh suchthings off.
He eventually makes it upstairs and he heads into the session. He has to ask the temple workers for help during the session because he can't put his temple clothes on by himself without his left arm. So an older gentleman sits down next to him and helps him throughout the session with his clothes. Pretty soon Dad is looking over at Michelle and I and pulling funny faces and nodding toward the man next to him. I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say. After the session he told us that L. Tom Perry, the apostle, was the gentleman siting next to him, helping him! It was pretty neat. He came and found Dad afterward in the locker room and talked to him. Dad was able to ask him it was alright for him to go up to the prayer circle without being able to do all the things with his left arm. It is something that Dad has felt really bad about. Bro. Perry said of course it was okay so tonight he went up with Michelle while I was with David. It was great. "