Our eldest son’s engagement and subsequent marriage had come quickly and as a surprise. But then, as parents nearly 4000 miles away, Jacob’s life and loves were more mysterious than when he lived at home.
The family of his bride-to-be lived in North Carolina. We lived in Connecticut. As a compromise, and to connect with friends and family they had associated with before moving to North Carolina, the marriage and a reception was to be held in the Washington, DC, and Maryland area.
The wedding week was tightly scheduled. Jacob and Suzie were, and are, BYU students and wanted to squeeze the wedding and receptions into the week between the winter and the spring semester. We planned the reception in Connecticut as a pre-wedding get together with our family and friends, from which we would travel to the DC area for the temple ceremony and a reception focused on the bride’s family there.
The festivities in Connecticut went well that Tuesday night. We cleaned up and sent Jacob and Suzie with Julie and the younger girls, N’Krysta and O’Kara, the following morning in the green van. Suzie was scheduled to have her endowments in the Washington, DC, temple on Thursday, and the sealing was scheduled for noon on Friday.
To have Jefferson participate in the wedding, he needed a special pass from West Point. The pass was only good for Thursday until Sunday. Me and the older children, McKenna and Adams went to pick him up in our white Dodge Intrepid.
Things just went right on the way down to DC. We connected with Jefferson at West Point even though the cell phones failed. We sailed through the New Jersey traffic jams, and the Pennsylvania construction zones and accidents. Only one wrong turn, quickly corrected, marred the smooth flow of the trip. The most challenging part was to make it to the hotel in time for much needed relief from traveling so long without stops. We made it on the first try, with no searching. I should mention that we had been given a special Church of Jesus Christ of Lat (yes, the title ended like that) special rate that I had discovered quite by accident.
Connection after connection was made. We found N’Krysta and O’Kara who were staying with Suzie’s cousin while the endowment was taking place. We easily found the Denny’s where the post-endowment meal was going on. We found the chapel in the farmlands of Maryland where the reception was to be held and helped prepare the cultural hall. We even managed to persuade the pizza place that, yes, they could deliver to our car sitting right outside their door, even though they were closed except for deliveries.
There was such a feeling of being guided that I was at peace when we headed to the temple for the sealing the following day. The only problem was that none of us in the car and the van following behind knew how to get to the temple. Jacob and Suzie had gone with Suzie’s family earlier to give the bride time to prepare. I had done some map searching on the web, but the instructions for the final legs of the trip to the temple were unclear and confusing.
We had turned off the freeway on what I believed to be the correct exit when we received a call from Jacob. Jefferson was manning the phone. Jacob wanted to know if I would serve as his escort, which, of course, I would be honored to do. He also wanted to know where we were and when we would get to the temple. We had to confess that we were not certain of our exact location nor the exact route to the temple. Jacob, wanting to help, proceeded to give us his understanding of how to get to the temple from where he thought we were. Listening to Jefferson’s interpretations of Jacob’s directions was complete confusion. I was certain that if I tried to follow those directions I would end up somewhere but not necessarily at the temple.
However, the Lord wanted us to get to the temple on time. As we swung left onto Connecticut Avenue from the freeway off ramp, listening to the mishmash of directions from Jacob through Jefferson, and entered the traffic preparatory to a stop light, we were passed on the right by a white car driven by an older fellow. Both McKenna and I noticed the license plate at nearly the same time. It said “Moroni”. McKenna and I smiled at each other and I said to Jefferson, “Tell Jacob to hang up. We will get there. No problem.”
We followed the car with the Moroni license plate. It led us into a park, through open gates, though that park, across another avenue, through a continuation of the park, and then turned onto the street with the temple. The car led us past the entrance to the visitor’s center directly to the temple parking lot and awning where Jacob was waiting. We arrived in plenty of time.
When Jacob asked how we found our way there so readily, all we could say was, “We followed Moroni!”
It seems that all these stories have extra strands that continue beyond the dramatic climax. For this story, the uncanny blessing of being led to be in the right place at the right time continued until we returned home to Connecticut. Right after we had taken pictures on the south side of the temple, we agreed to meet with my mother, Julie’s parents, her sister Cheryl and her husband Matt, their two younger children, and my brother Robert and his wife Tess, at the Macaroni Grill somewhere in DC. Cell phones were consulted, I referred to my maps, and somehow, all three different vehicles, going three different ways, arrived at the restaurant at the same time. A wonderful, memorable meal enjoyed, somehow, all of us, in three different vehicles made it to the reception at the chapel in the farmlands in time, where Jacob and Suzie sang, Jefferson served as the DJ, and everyone had a great time.
The following morning, the wedding party broke up, but the Lord continued to guide and direct. Jacob did not have money to rent a car, so I loaned him ours. That meant that we had to fit our family, that is Julie and I and our five youngest children, along with my mother, in our 7 passenger, green Plymouth Grand Caravan with nearly 200,000 miles on it, with all our luggage. There were not enough seats and luggage space, but it all fit. I carefully drove the overloaded van to the restaurant where we shared breakfast with the Timmons and the Fowlers. Afterwards, my mother and O’Kara wanted to visit Washington before mom had to catch her plane and we traveled home.
I drove carefully around Washington, relying on knowledge gained when driving through the town for a family vacation two years previously. Mom snapped pictures of the various sites and monuments as we drove slowly by. O’Kara wanted to visit a museum and chose to visit the National Air Space Museum. Somehow, incredibly, a parking spot right across from the museum was open. We parked, climbed up the stairs and thought to call the Fowlers. We discovered that they were just a few hundred yards away coming to visit the same museum. We met with them, explored the museum, lost and found a daughter, and left to get my Mom to the Baltimore airport. We had to buy some of the to incredibly cheap t-shirts sold there. We then realized that we were running out of time. Relying on memory and a miniature map in the US book of maps, we headed out of Washington. Suspense was heightened as ran into Saturday traffic jams and clogged highways. But the Lord continued to watch us – the parkway I had chosen almost by chance was a short cut that took us straight to Baltimore International in perfect time for my mother’s flight. And somehow the van survived the overloading.
It is very comforting to be lead by the Lord, whether by direct inspiration or by someone in a car with “Moroni” license plates.
No comments:
Post a Comment