In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we don't believe in coincidences.  Things don't just happen by chance.  They happen by design.

Take yesterday for example  (3 May 2024).  I dare you to count the coincidences I'm about to relate, and I defy anyone to say that they happened by chance.

I must first tell you what I'm trying to accomplish.

Marjorie and I try to go to the temple once a week.  In the first four months of the year we made 14 visits to the temple, and completed 222 ordinances.  We do that by each doing an endowment every time we go, and by following the endowments with either a sealing session or an initiatory session.  The ordinances are all being done for family names that I generate from my own researches.  It's thrilling to be able to accomplish so much.

Several years ago I set out to find every descendant of all 16 sets of my 3rd great grandparents, and to see that each individual's temple work was completed.  I do it on Family Search.  I'm currently working on the 11th set, Henry and Sarah Fansler, born 1761 and 1765.  Their nine children, their grandchildren of every generation down to 110 years ago, plus the spouses of each, amount to many, many hundreds of people.  I research every name, correct the dates and places, make their vital statistics accurate, and ensure that everyone's temple ordinances are all complete.  Much work has already been accomplished, but there are lots and lots of holes, and much work to be done.

Marjorie does not want to go to the temple if the weather is bad.  The forecast this week was for snow to happen every day but Thursday.  That sunny day was to be our temple day.  On Thursday, however, Marjorie awoke with intestinal troubles.  That forecasted sunny day turned out to be blustery, with rain and snow.  Friday morning, however, was bright, sunny, and warm.  It wasn't supposed to be.  We generally don't go to the temple on Fridays because that's the morning that my siblings and I meet and walk together at 7:30.  Marjorie and I decided that I would do my walk, and that we'd then leave for the temple.

I got on the computer to make an appointment at our Meridian Temple for a sealing session.  I had 24 sealings needing to be done.  There were no sealing sessions available.  I checked the Boise Temple, and reserved a 3:00 sealing session there.

This day that earlier in the week was supposed to have been blustery was a wonderful traveling day through the green hills.  The temperature was 69 degrees.  It was a perfect day which we both enjoyed immensely.  We each did a Fansler endowment, waited a half hour, and were ushered into a sealing session consisting of the sealer and four temple ordinance workers plus ourselves.  We were the only ones there with names to do.  It was a sealing session just for us.  Our 14 couple sealings and 10 children to be sealed to parents perfectly occupied the time allotted for the session.

Matthew Fowler was the sealer.  As he and we waited for the ordinance workers to arrive, he visited with us.  He learned that we had served a mission in Vanuatu, and said that he must tell us a story.

His neighbors had adopted a dark-skinned, black-haired boy.  They named him Adam Rainsdon.  Adam was called on a mission to Kiribati, a Pacific island nation.  On his second or third day in the country Adam's missionary companion said that he needed to take him to meet a particular woman.

The woman was happy to see them, and began grilling Elder Rainsdon.

"Where are you from?"

"Nampa, Idaho, U.S.A."

"No, where are you from originally?"

"Well, I was adopted.  All I know is that I was born in Vanuatu."

The woman continued to question Elder Rainsdon, and then excused herself and went into another room.  Brother Fowler said, "Adam told me this story himself, so it's not second- or third-hand.  The woman came back into the room and said, 'Your mother is my niece!'"

What are the chances that Elder Rainsdon should go to that country and that home?  What are the chances that we should go to the temple on that day, meet that sealer, and be told that story relevant to the people we loved?

As I watched Brother Fowler sealing my family names, I suddenly knew something.  At the end of the session as he thanked us for being there, I asked, "Brother Fowler, are you a stake patriarch?"

"Why, yes, I am.  How did you know that?"

"The Spirit, I suppose.  I'm also a patriarch."

"How long have you been a patriarch?" he asked.

"Five years.  How long have you been one?"

"Two and a half years.  I received callings to be a sealer and a patriarch a week apart."

"What other callings have you had?"

"I was a bishop and a high counselor.  Many sealers are also patriarchs."

"I am aware of that."

I used to wish that I could be a sealer in the temple so that I could perform the marriage ceremonies for my grandchildren.  I think that I would be a sealer now but for the fact that we had to be released from our temple callings because of Marjorie's developing dementia.

Our release turned out to be a huge blessing..  As ordinance workers I rarely got a chance to do any ordinance work for my own family names.  As a patron I'm getting lots done.  The Family Search website says that we have accomplished 1,460 ordinances.  That would include baptisms that our grandchildren have done for us.  None of that would have happened if I was still working in the temple.

The reason that I originally became a temple ordinance worker is because I let slip a goal that I set one January.  I had determined to accomplish 100 temple ordinances that year.  Bishop Allen Bingham took note, and asked if I'd like to be an ordinance worker.  I jumped at the chance, and was soon set apart.  I served in that capacity at the Boise and Meridian Temples for a total of 10 years before and after our mission to Vanuatu.  I'm sure that I accomplished 100 temple ordinances each year, but they were largely names submitted by other people.

As I sat in yesterday's endowment session I realized that we'd be doing 26 ordinances that day.  That would bring our year's total up to 248 ordinances.  Maybe, I thought, I should set a goal for us to do 1,000 ordinances this year.

That's probably not realistic.  If we maintained our current rate of temple attendance we might accomplish 700.  I'm going to be realistic.  I'm setting a goal for the two of us to accomplish 500 temple ordinances this year, but I'll hope to accomplish more.

It was a wonderful thing that we were released as temple ordinance workers so that I could work on my own family history.  (Another coincidence?)