Temple Walk!

On Saturday, the McLean Stake youth walked to the D.C. temple from the Arlington chapel and I walked with them.  It was a total of about 14 miles.  There were over 160 youth that walked and over 200 people that walked in all, that including the adult volunteers.  

It was a really good experience! It was to help us remember the sacrifice that some people have to make to go to the temple. (I will talk about it more at the end of the post.)

At the beginning of the walk, I started talking to one of the young women and we just ended up walking the whole way together.  We talked the whole time, we walked about the same speed, and we encouraged each other when we were getting tired.

The picture above is most of the youth after we had made it to the temple.

I kind of forgot to take more pictures but I did take a few. I liked this tunnel! The group you see ahead in the picture is a group of youth.

This tunnel was a little eerie.  It's part of a trail in Bethesda and when Dana and I got to it we were the only people in it that we could see.  It reminded me of an eerie sci-fi movie or something.

After the eerie tunnel above we ate lunch at this cute little park. Dana nor I never sat down at any of the pit stops knowing that if we sat down, it would be really hard to get back up. 

We walked through some nice neighborhoods. The weather was seriously perfect for the walk.  It was sunny and the temperature was in the low 60s.

If you look close, you can see the temple ahead. This was our first glimpse of the temple and we were super excited! We were still about 2 miles away but we knew we would make it then!

A cool shot of the temple that kind of blends in with the clouds!

Dana and I after we made it to the finish line which was the stake center next to the temple.  (It took us about 5 hours from start to finish.) After everyone made it to the temple, we had a little devotional at the temple visitor's center where the stake president talked about why we did this walk. 

This is what greeted us at the temple!  The tulips were beautiful!

The walk was to help us appreciate that we live so close to a temple and to think about the sacrifice that some people have to make to go to the temple.  Although there are temples all over the world, there are still a lot of people that must save up for years and years and travel so far to get to the temple just once in their life. The stake wanted us to remember that and encouraged the adults to contribute to the temple fund which helps those that live far away from a temple get to there at least once in their lives.

Let the temple be our goal.  The temple is a place of peace and refuge and love. We make covenants and perform ordinances there which will help us return to our Heavenly Father and live with our families forever.  Let us strive to go to the temple as often as we can and be grateful for being so close to one. I love the temple and I am grateful for having a means of getting to the temple in just about 30 minutes!