And the Testing one, two three, testing one, two one two three this is radio free Mormon on the air

broadcasting behind enemy lines tonight's episode the The Temple and Me.

You know, for the past several months and even years now, a number of my listeners have reached

out to me and asked me if I would share with the audience my first experience going

through the LDS temple for my temple endowment.

And describe what that experience was like.

While I will tell you up front that I know that many members of the church, especially

lifetime members of the church, have an extremely

negative experience the first time they go through the LDS temple. But my first time going through

the temple was really not negative. In fact, if anything, it was probably positive overall.

I think there's a reason that I had this reaction to the temple as compared with many

other members of the church who have a negative reaction going to the temple and tonight

I want to talk a little bit about why it was that I think that I had the experience I had

the first time I went through the temple and in order to do that I'm going to have to give you a little background

information on me in order to help explain that. As listeners to this program know, I was baptized into the church in June of

1978 fresh out of high school I was 18 years old.

I was baptized by my best friend Bruce and Bruce had been my best friend since we moved

into a new house in a new town in ninth grade in the

fall of 1974. My family had spent my first six or so years in Washington State moving from rental house to apartments

then to a different set of apartments we were here there and everywhere and

of course every time we moved I was going to a new school in a new school district and having to do my best to make new friends.

But in the fall of 1974, my parents bought a house, a number of miles south of where we lived in Kent, Washington, in a town called Sumner, Washington. of

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