A few thoughts on the Temple in Rome

I just wanted to take a few minutes on this sunday evening to talk about the newly announced Rome, Italy Temple. Just to give you a little background, I want to tell you about the first day of my mission. We had been traveling for nearly 20 hours and we were exausted. But we got to Rome in the middle of the day so we had to stay awake for at least several hours before going to bed. To keep us awake my, President Jensen took us on a little sightseeing tour. First he took us to St. Paul Outside the Walls Basilica. It was built in the 4th century AD, when the Romans were closest to original Christianity. In the corner there is the remenant of a baptismal font, evidence of baptism by emersion even in early Roman Christianity. President Jensen emphasized the fact that we were serving on the same ground as the ancient apostles of Jesus Christ. They were the first to bring the truth to Italy and evidence of that truth still lies in Italy's oldest churches. Sadly, the baptismal font at St. Pauls has been out of comission for centuries.

Then we were taken to another site. It was only a few miles outside of the city but it felt like the middle of the country. We walked up a long, treelined driveway which opened up to a beautiful grove of olive trees. President Jensen told us that this was church owned property and that it was purchased in the hopes of building a temple in Rome someday. He asked us to take a few minutes alone and make some promises to Heavenly Father about what we would give to make sure that temple was built. I could have stayed there all afternoon. It is several acres of land not to far from the main highway that circles around Rome. Later I found out from the AP's that it was really difficult to get a building permit anywhere near Rome, especially for a religious building. One of the major hold-ups was usually archeological reasons. If they find so much as a pottery chard anywhere on the site, building is called to a halt and sometimes never starts up again. However, they told me that the church land had already been inspected and that no archeological artifacts were found. And this is Rome were talking about!! How can they not find something on acres and acres of land right outside one of the most historically populated places on earth? The Lord has been planning this temple for a very long time.

About one year into my mission I was kind of at a crossroads. I had enjoyed only one progressing investigator who soon fell away when a priesthood blessing failed to heal her dying mother. I found myself in Rome with two very dear mission companions who were having struggles of their own. Italy is a hard place to serve a mission. I decided to get permission to go and visit the temple grounds again, in the hopes that I could find the motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other. So one sunny P-day my two companions and I went to have a picnic on the temple grounds. I remembered the promises I made on that first day of my mission over a year before. I was brought to tears, realizing that themple wasn't built yet so there was no way I could give up. Just the fact that land had been purchased and set apart to host the house of the Lord was proof that I wasn't there for nothing. It was tangible proof that someone was out there waiting for the truth in Italy.

I was blessed to witness the baptism of one of our investigators in Rome before being transferred up to Florence. I don't know what happened, but after a few weeks of same old knocking doors/rejection for 10 hours we began to be blessed with work. Soon we had almost no time to knock doors, we had so many appointments. People would just walk into church wanting to be taught. I would teach young women's one day and one of the girls wasn't a member, an eternal investigator all the sudden decided she wanted to get serious about baptism. I had the great joy of seeing two baptisms that last transfer.

Then one day Anziano Baham, my zone leader, called me during an appointment three times. Finally I answered thinking it was an emergency and he told me that there was going to be a stake in Rome. You see, a stake was the first stepping stone towards getting a temple. They couldn't even talk about a temple until Rome could support a stake. Of course, I freaked out and started bawling right in front of our investigator but it didn't matter. Italians have a way of rejoicing when you rejoice even if they don't know what the fuss is all about.

In the past three and half years I have always tried to catch the beginning of the Saturday Morning Session of Conference because that is when they announce the temples. I literally held my breath and said a prayer every single time. I wasn't expecting something for at least 8 - 10 more years but I didn't want to miss it just in case. Last conference when President Monson paused before saying the last temple all Icould think was, "don't get your hopes up it will be a while..." Then he said it and I started screaming!!! Then bawling, then screaming some more. I just wanted to share this happy story with anyone who cares to read it and share some of my pics of the temple grounds in Italy:

This is an old winery, the only building on the grounds.

You can't really see it but on the horizon is downtown Rome, you can see the Vatican when the sun's not directly in your eyes.

I know, this one is cheesy. This is me and Cylynn (Sorella Wisniewski), my companion in Rome.