Ilovechrist77 wrote:Thank you, DarkJedi, for sharing the experience. I'm glad you got to go to the endowment with your son. I've haven't been to the temple since my late twenties, I'm 38 now. I haven't been there in years since I have about two hours away. I hope you to get my recommend renewed and go back soon, although it will be a bit challenging going back after I have had a faith reconstruction.
I thought that, too. I've had a recommend for over a year but I hadn't used it. I honestly didn't know how I was going to react to some things. The last time I went to the temple I believed in literal Adam and Eve, Satan, creation as written (with days as creative periods, of course), actual signs and tokens that we'd really be required to give someday, etc. As some of you have noted, I went to be with my son because it was important to him. It was not important to me personally and if it weren't for him going I wouldn't have gone. I'm glad I did go - but because I could be there with him (and my wife). So, like taking the big step in going back to church a year and a half ago, it wasn't so bad once I got there. Other than my family, nobody there knew I hadn't been in years and it turns out non-literal Adam and Eve are pretty much like the literal ones. FWIW I didn't particularly like the Satan in the version of the film I saw, but I did like the added emotion and actual acting on the part of the others (OK, maybe some was a bit overdone.) Overall I think the key for me was that I wasn't really expecting anything - no revelation, no new learning, no intense spiritual experience, etc. With the bar that low it was hard for the temple to fail.
In the absence of knowledge or faith there is always hope.
Once there was a gentile...who came before Hillel. He said "Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot." Hillel converted him, saying: That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."
My Introduction
