Draper Temple Dedication

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I promise to be better in the future, but not much has been going on.

Today I took Madison to the Draper Temple dedication (at our Stake Center). Since Jenny & Scott were out of town on a cruise I thought perhaps Madi would like to attend her first temple dedication with me. Since she is only 8 I knew she probably wouldn't "get" most of what was going on, but I hoped to just add to her reservoir of spiritual experiences in her childhood that will hopefully keep her on the straight and narrow as she gets older.

Well Aunt Jen did not really plan accordingly for an 8 year old to sit quietly for 2 hours. We got there about 40 minutes early (instead of the instructed 30 minutes early) and being the bright Aunt that I am I didn't bring anything to entertain Madi while we waited. Not even scriptures she could read. She had her white hankerchief and that is it. Needless to say Madi was bored to tears after about 20 min.....and the temple dedication hadn't even started yet. Here are some one-liners from her in what had to have been the longest 2 hours of her life to date:

"Jen, I'm not thinking this is very fun yet"

"Jen I think my tummy hurts, I think I'm getting sick"

10 minutes later......."Jen, my tummy really, really hurts. I probably need to go home." (Note as I asked more clarifying questions I determined that she was "faking" sick, especially since she was magically better the second we started walking to the car. I even called her on it and asked if she was faking to which she said "no" but i know better :))

Regarding the dedicatory prayer - "That was the longest prayer I've EVER seen or heard" (it was probably 5-7 minutes long at least). She did sit with her arms folded the whole time, but got really squirmy for the last 2 minutes.

To her credit she really did great. Her acting skills did have me thinking for a bit that she might actually be sick and had me trying to figure out how I was going to handle a sudden sprint to the bathroom (if necessary). However, once I gave her my watch to play with she never discussed being sick again....LOL!

When all is said and down I was sick of sitting on the hard chairs too so I can't really fault her. As Aunt Carol welcomed her home Madi proceeded to say "Yeah! Finally!" Guess I can't fault her for that. She probably hasn't had to sit that still with nothing to entertain her ever in her life. Hopefully she doesn't equate her boredom at the temple dedication with going to the temple in the future. Guess she is still only 8......