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Our last day in Utah was memorable for a number of reasons. We woke up, washed, showered, shaved and did our hair and got dressed in our Sunday best for the 2-hour drive from Green River to Manti. This next 10 days is the beginning of why we really wanted to come to the states. It’s always been a wish of Jodie’s to attend the Manti Temple. The Manti Temple is the fifth Temple built in this dispensation. It is actually the third Temple built in Utah, St George being the first, Logan Being the second and Manti being the third. It dominates the skyline in Sanpete County in rural Utah. 

For those who are not of my faith, Temples are very important for a number of reasons. One, it gives me the opportunity, or challenge, to try and live the gospel the best I can and be the best person I can because of the high standard of living one needs to maintain to enter. Secondly, it gives us the opportunity to think less of ourselves, and more of others as we go and perform ordinances vicariously for those who have passed away. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, it would seem any time I plan to attend the Temple, there is always some type of opposition, either time, or contention, or just plain hassles. Well today was no different. 

The intention was for Jodie to do a session and for me to do baptisms with Courtney and Thomas. When we left Green River I had half way between a quarter of a tank and a half a tank of fuel. As I was returning the hire car today, I had already per-paid for a full tank of fuel, so I remember thinking to myself, should I put some fuel in to get me to Salt Lake. I quickly dismissed the thought and said, “NAHH, I’ve got plenty.: About 25miles out of Green River it said on a sign on the side of the road that Green River was the last fuel or services for a 110miles. It occurred to me that I would need to get some petrol, but still thought I had plenty to get to Manti. How wrong that proved to be. The highway 70 in Utah is a magnificent road. It’s a dual carriage way for over 150miles, it cuts its way through canyons and deserts and vast open Utah moonscape. It’s quite acceptable to drive at 150km/h. 

I was enjoying this driving experience until I looked down and saw the fuel in my car rapidly diminish. The trip computer told me I only had 22miles of fuel left in my tank and 60miles left to get to the next service station. You see, last time I went to the Manti Temple with a work colleague, I ran out of fuel, and it seems as though history was going to repeat itself. I now became quite panicked because we were literally out in the middle of nowhere and cars were passing at phenomenal speeds. I was scared on a number of fronts, the most concerning of which would be, if we ran out of fuel, Jodie and the kids would be left on the side of the rad in searing temperatures while I hitch-hiked for fuel which could have literally taken hours. 

I encouraged the family to pray really hard that we would make the 60miles and the 22miles of fuel I had left in the car. The car fell silent; I turned off the air-conditioning and opened the windows slightly as I tried to eek every morsel f fuel out of the car as I could. Pretty soon the equation said I only had 9miles of fuel in the tank and still an excess of 48miles into the next town. It was then that the thought suddenly came to me, check your GPS. Using the GPS, I searched for the nearest petrol station from our current location. It found one in the town of Emery in Utah. It was 22miles away, and would mean I would have o leave highway 70. As we got to the exit of highway 70, the town was still 13miles away and I was down to 3miles of fuel left in my car. The car was still quiet and I could feel the anxiousness of Jodie and the kids and could tell they were praying really hard that we would make the petrol station. 

I slowed down to 40m/h and wound down all the windows, putting the car into neutral, coasting downhill and the rolling uphill and far as I could until I had to put it in drive. Then the unthinkable happened, the cars trip computer, told me I had 0miles of fuel left in my tank and I was still 4.5miles to the petrol station. This may seem cheesy or corny, but I have never been more thankful to see a small, non-descript town in the middle of nowhere then when I was when I pulled into Emery, Utah. We pulled into the only service station in town and I openly acknowledged to the kids as corny and cheesy as this sounds that they had just witnessed a miracle. I put in ¾ of a tank of fuel; the family took this as an opportunity, especially Tamzyn who had been feeling quite sick from a mild case of food poisoning combined with travel sickness. 

Although thus had taken us 20-30mins out of our way, the alternative, had we run out of fuel, would have been devastating and completely ruined our day and would not have made it possible for Jodie and the kids to attend one of the more unique temples in the world today. You see, Manti is one of only two Temples in the world that offers a live endowment session. I had been there in July the previous year, but Jodie had not had the privilege. I was really fearful she would miss the opportunity. But as an answer to pray, we fueled up and continued on our journey to Manti. We arrived in plenty of time to prepare for 1:00pm baptisms with the kids, and Jodie was lucky enough to attend the 12:30 session. 

This was a fabulous experience for both Jodie and I. Thomas, Courtney and I found the temple workers most accommodating, considerate and loving and the kids were baptized in the original font that was built in the 1840’s. The baptistery had beautiful hand-painted murals on all the walls, with reference to New and Old Testament scriptures relating to baptism. So what could have been a stressful, disastrous day turned out to be a magnificent spiritual high for all our family. Even for Tamzyn and Genna, who were just delightful whilst waiting in the annex. When Jodie came out we took the opportunity to take some family pictures to remember out time at Manti before driving back to Salt Lake, stopping on the way at my Global headquarters to show Jodie and the kids and dropping some stuff off to be shipped back to Australia. We then drove to a car wash to wash two weeks of southern Utah dust off the car before returning to the airport. We then went to the airport, had a great experience checking our luggage and went upstairs to the Delta Lounge to wait to catch the 11:55pm red-eye flight to New York City. And that’s it, a full and exciting day.



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