We are now members of the Washington D.C. temple district and I have to say it's a little bit different than living in Utah!
In Layton, we were half an hour from at least 3 temples and had the opportunity to go to multiple while we lived there. The sessions were always long because they were so packed with people.
Here, it takes at least an hour and a half (without traffic) to get to the D.C. temple. And the nest closest is Philadelphia temple which is 3+ hours away.
I was lucky enough to get to go to the temple with a couple of sister from my new ward this week. I very much enjoyed going and was glad to have them there to show me around. We went on a Thursday morning and on the way they both commented on how it's a very underutilized temple and if you go on a weekday, especially in the morning, it goes quick because there is never many people there.
One of the sisters is a convert and very big into family history and has been very on top of getting all her family's temple work done, so she had some names for us to do which I was very grateful that she let us (and here's the side story of why I was so grateful).
She has 2 grown children who both have families, one lives in Utah and the other is in the air force and right now his family is stationed in Korea. As she does more family history and finds more relatives, she sends the family names to her grandchildren and lets them do the baptisms and confimations, and then trades off with her children and their spouse or her and her husband to do the rest of the work. So the names she gave us had been baptized and confirmed by her grandchildren in Seoul, South Korea (I thought that was pretty cool). But the fact the she let someone, other than family, do some names I thought was an honor (not that she is against letting other people do it, I think it's just very powerful and spiritual to have their family do it all including the grandkids).
We had the intention of doing a few names and then doing just one endowment session, but we only had time to get through one before the endowment so I only had one name the whole time and I thought it was neat.
The D.C. temple is gorgeous on the outside, and reminded me of the Boise temple just from the stone. It looks white from far away but up close it was similar to the old grey look the Boise one had. It is secluded a bit up on a little hill surrounded by trees. In each corner it has this amazing stained glass that is really just chunks there's no pattern or picture to it, and they go from the ground up to the very top of the 7 stories. But they look 100 times more amazing from the inside. They'rs just pieces of blues and pinks that start dark at the bottom and get lighter as they get to the top. When the sun was shining through they looked amazing inside and each corner had a staircase that just wrapped its way up following the stained glass and of course at the bottom was a fountain. Pretty spectacular.
I was warned that it was a very "plain" temple. I love the Salt Lake temple for its over-the-top beauty and immaculate designs and just the little details everywhere. I don't love the Bountiful temple for the exact opposite reason, its so plain and simple, not a lot of details or artwork.
But I thought the D.C. temple was right in the middle. Nothing over the top, but it wasn't super plain either. The celestial room might actually be one of my favorites.
The thing that stood out to me was that the men and women weren't segregated (at least not with an aisle separating you, they do still have men sit together on one side and women on the other) and both the sisters I went with told me that one of the best things about that temple is if you get their early enough, you can sit right next to your husband so that is cool and I can't wait to go with Nate.
The funny thing about this session though was that I was expecting it to be empty since they both warned me. But it wasn't even close! I think there were 5 total empty seat? But there were two missionaries going through for themselves so I think that is what filled it up, it was just ironic since I had been warned twice that it would be empty.
It was really great to go, and it is a gorgeous temple. I took a picture I took per my mother's request.
I didn't love the drive...that will take some getting used to. Half of it was winding through a "mountainous" road and the backseat made me a little carsick, but I survived and can't wait to go with Nate soon!
