Eddie and I took a day off a couple of weeks ago and headed up to Vancouver, B.C. to attend the open house for the new temple. We couldn't have asked for a better day! Not only was the sun shining, but the lines to get across the border were short and there was no line at the temple. We'd heard from others that lines on the weekends were horrific, so Thursday was a good day to go.
The temple is beautiful! With every temple, they try to weave some of the local culture into the temple. In this case, the dogwood is the B.C. provincial flower so many of the carvings and etchings and even the landscaping contained bits of the dogwood flower influence.
As we were walking up to the temple, they asked us to put on these white shoe covers to protect the carpeting inside the temple. We did so and headed inside where our tour began. Now being temple worker ourselves in the Seattle Temple, we were very interested to see and hear the reactions and comments from those in our group who were not members of the Church. They had some great questions. Everything from what goes on inside the temple to wondering if members get to come back over and over again. Since we consider the temple a sacred place, there are those who tend to think that we are being secretive. Not true - we just hold those covenants so sacred that to speak carelessly about them would be irreverent and disrespectful.
After the tour, we were invited to walk over to the church building across the parking lot where they had big displays set up to help answer questions and offer more information to visitors. What a great reason to take a day off and head up to Canada!
Before we left, we took lots of pictures of the temple,
the temple grounds,
and even a picture of us in front of the temple...
Of course, after we took the picture, we remembered why it's just better to ask others for help (thank goodness for digital cameras!).
Before we could cross the border though, we had to stop in at a drug store. While neither Eddie nor myself can take them, we have a friend who was in such dire need of a "Canada run" that we stopped in to pick up some Tylenol w/Codeine (because we can't get that here in the U.S.). So, I asked the pharmacist how many I'm allowed to take back across the border and purchased what I could.
Now, I have another friend who
loves Kinder Eggs, something else you can't get in the U.S. So after stopping at the pharmacy counter I went to the candy section to find Kinder Eggs and ended up with 5 Kinder Eggs, and other "Canadian candy" - a
Bueno bar,
Aero bar,
Wunderbar, and a puffy
Kit Kat (puffy because it didn't look like the kind of Kit Kat I'm used to, and it had some cream filling at the top that tasted like hazelnuts).
Ok, so I walked up to the check out counter with my Tylenol in one hand (already paid for that) and 9 pieces of candy in the other hand. The checker gave me a somewhat strange look given what I was buying, until I explained that I needed to buy all of this candy because we can't get it in the U.S. That seemed ok and the raised eyebrow look I initially got from her disappeared and she was very friendly - even gave me a reusable shopping bag for free! :)
Now, with my treasures in tote, got back to the car, got that same raised eyebrow look from Ed when he saw how much candy I bought (until I explained to him that it's not all for us), and we were headed home. The line at the border moved pretty quickly, only waited about 15 minutes, but I was nervous. I sat there the whole time thinking, "Do I tell them I even bought the Tylenol? What do I say?" We got up to the border booth, she took our passports, asked why we were there - Temple open house, asked how long we were there - 3 hours, asked if we brought anything back with us - candy and Tylenol. Yup, just candy and Tylenol. Nothing - no reaction, no startled look, no eyebrows raised, no desire to search the car - huh, that was easy.
What a beautiful day!
(By the way, Sarah, the Kinder Eggs are on their way! ;)
