Jarom's Endowment & Law Reunion

This past weekend was fun as we were able to go to Alan's parent's house in Emmett and go through the temple for the first time with Alan's younger brother, Jarom. He has many disabilities but he's there enough mentally to really zing you with sarcasm and wit whenever he can! He's pretty fun and teases you every chance he gets, even though all he can do is sign it. You get his message loud and clear and you laugh. He's pretty great. I can't wait to get to the other side so that I can actually talk to him clearly. It will be so awesome.

Funny story though, before the photo dump, Alan had to go with Jarom and Dad so he could sign during the interview and parts of the session for Jarom. So, Friday morning, Alan had to leave early because his parents live about an hour away from the temple and he, Dad and Jarom had to be there at 10:30. We didn't have to leave until about 11-11:30, but they had to leave at 9:30. So, we all got ready and the endowed members left at the house after they left piled into their huge 12 seater van and started for Boise. ....

We got about 20 min into the drive and there was a huge clunk under the van, the power steering went out and the AC stopped working. Lance, who is a mechanic, was driving and he said "Huh.... maybe I ought to pull over and check that". So we did. As soon as he opened the hood, he realized the clunk was the serpentine belt falling off and there was antifreeze all over the place. We were stranded. It was 90* outside, we were all dressed to go to the temple, we had left in exactly enough time to get to the temple in time for the session, and we were stranded on the side of the road.

Fortunately, Gr'ma & Gr'pa Vickery were following us, stopped off to the side of the road and grabbed Mom, Laureen and Lance and took them so that Mom wouldn't miss Jarom going through the temple.

But, we were left on our own. So, we called Alan's sister, Tauna, and asked her to bring the Expedition (our Expedition) to us and have someone follow along in another car behind her so that she'd have a ride home. She agreed and came immediately.

Then she missed us. Drove right past us and wouldn't pick up her phone because it was turned on silent and she'd forgotten. The lady following her had seen us and pulled over long enough to grab Justin and they zoomed off in chase of her.

They flagged her down and got her to come back. As Carrie was stepping out of the van to get into the Expedition, she stepped ankle deep into mud. So, we had to clean her off a bit and loaded up.

By then, we had about 30 minutes to be to the temple in time. We knew we weren't going to make it and because Jarom has to have the hearing impaired video, we couldn't just switch things.

We decided that we were going to laugh about it and not be upset because there was nothing we could do. So, we thought that we would just go ahead and do some initiatories or sealings or something when we got there so we could be waiting in the celestial room when the rest of them finished. Mom called a little bit into the drive to tell us that they had made it in time and she would do what she could to get them to wait for us.

We got to the temple by about 10 after noon and there was a man waiting at the desk. He smiled and said "You must be the Vickerys. We've been waiting for you". It was awesome. We all went and got dressed in a hurry and went into the chapel to wait. Alan grabbed me and told me that he was so anxious because the idea of me stranded on the side of the road with no way to help me was driving him crazy. It was sweet.

We made it through the session fine. Jarom seemed to get the majority of what was going on. Alan's signing went fine. He said that the Spirit helped him a lot because much of what he was saying with his hands, he had no clue what he was saying. Which was kind of cool. We all bawled when we were in the celestial room together.

Then, after, when we were getting ready to leave, Jarom and Alan were taking forever to get out of the changing rooms and when they did come out, Alan told me that Jarom had taken his garments off with his temple clothes too and put his regular underwear back on. He thought it was all the same thing! LOL We laughed pretty hard. So, the reason it took so long was because Alan had to make him go back in and get redressed WITH his garments on. :) Too funny.

Anywho, the rest of the weekend went off great. We went swimming, played games, rode horses, spent lots of time in the sun and enjoyed each other's company.

Here are photos: