God is no respecter of persons

On Saturday, October 15, 2011 we made our first trip into the big N.Y.C. - YAHOO! We went on a ward temple trip with a few members of our ward. We rode down with Sister Neary (Bishop's wife) and Jose Gallardo (ward mission leader). Jose kept us laughing the whole time! What a funny guy! The ward tries to do a temple trip once a month and they alternate between Boston and NYC. We are really in the Boston Temple District but it's 2 1/2 hours away as opposed to the NYC Temple which is about 45 minutes to an hour.
Going to the temple was an amazing experience. The city is SO busy and it feels like you have to constantly run to keep up with the world. The taxi driver was insane and I thought for sure we were going to crash about 20 times just on the way there. There was very noisy construction going on right outside the temple and everything just seemed so rushed and crazy. Then we walked into the temple and felt an entirely different feeling; one of peace, rest, love, calm, clean, and the list could go on. A brother that was with us referred to NYC as 'Babylon' as we walked out of the temple and I couldn't agree more. Although I love the city there is such a noticeable difference in the feelings from being inside and outside of the temple that it is an experience in and of itself just to walk in the doors and then walk back outside!
While I was at the temple I went through for a person who was from Africa. I also noticed that all of her ordinances has been done on that very same day. When we were just about finished the woman a few people down from me leaned over to the woman next to me and me and told us that the people we were going through for were her family. The name she had was the mother and then the three women next to her were her daughters. What joy must have felt that mother and daughters' hearts as they were able to receive their ordnances at the same time. I imagine the 4 of them were in that room on Saturday, embracing each other their work was being done. After she had told us that, I recognized the ethnicity of each person that was doing the work for each of those sisters was different. The thought came to me that "God is no respecter of persons", He truly doesn't care what we look like or what color our skin is, all He cares about is bringing His children back to the fold so that they can also know and feel of His love. I was deeply touched by this experience and hope that it gives you something to think about.
I LOVE THE TEMPLE and can't wait to go back!