Mesa, Arizona Temple Trip

Mesa, Arizona Temple

The summer before I turned 17 our stake Church youth group got to take a trip to Mesa, Arizona to go and do baptisms for the dead at the Mesa temple. It was the temple that was closest to where we lived. There were lots of kids that went. We all got up early in the morning and met at the Church to ride a bus there. It was really fun. We packed lunches and lots of snacks to eat on the way there. It took all day to get there. We sang songs, ate, and talked all the way there. When we arrived in Mesa we were all assigned to stay the night at different members houses. We all got up early in the morning again to go to the temple.

Everyone looked so beautiful in white baptism clothes while we waited our turns. It was very quiet and peaceful as we sat and watched each other be baptized. It was easy to remember how happy I had felt the day that I got baptized when I was 8 years old. I thought about how happy the people whose names I got that day might be also.

Afterwards we went outside and walked around the temple grounds. There were oranges and grapefruits growing on the trees all around. Our leaders told us that we could pick a couple of them to eat and to take home. I had never seen a grapefruit growing on a tree before. I had mostly grown up in Utah where it’s too cold to grow oranges and grapefruit. I was really excited to pick one. (Oranges are one of my favorite fruits, although if I eat too many of them at one time I sometimes get a rash on the inside of my arms.) The oranges were too high up on the trees to pick so I picked a grapefruit. So did a couple of my friends. We sat down under the tree to peel our fruit and eat it. As I opened up the skins I could see that it wasn’t a pink grapefruit, but a while one inside. I peeled it apart and put one of the sections into my mouth and bit into it. Oh, as I tasted it my mouth puckered up into a tiny little circle and my eyes closed tight as could be. My whole face shuddered. It was soooo sour! I was very disappointed but still wanted to eat it so I just kind of licked it like a lolly pop for a while and sucked out the juice more slowly. It was fun to eat and talk. My friends also made funny faces as they ate theirs and we all laughed.

We all got back on the bus and stopped at McDonald’s and got some food for the trip home. One the way home we mostly talked and slept. We didn’t get home until quite late, but we had nice memories of the trip and had made a few more friends.