Tag Archives: Mormon

Architecture, Photography, Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Las Vegas Nevada Temple

February 20, 2014 Hubbard's Cupboard 6 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve posted picture on LDS temples.

This is the Las Vegas Nevada Temple. We stopped here on the way to San Diego back in October.

My husband is really good at going to the temple every week. I’ve been trying to go every other week but it is really a lot harder to go to the temple with little kids. It has worked out though for the most part. I get the the temple about twice a month. Even though I don’t always get to go with Dallin to the temple, the sisters in our ward are always arranging trips together to the temple. It’s nice to get away to have some “girls time” too. This allows me to be able to get to know different sisters in our ward better by going to the temple with them.

I also notice that even though I can’t go to the temple as often, there is still an increased measure of the Spirit at home. Why? I think it’s because little babies bring with them a special spirit. Also, I think it’s because my husband has been so faithful in attending the temple. I also believe that new moms can be blessed to have the “spirit of the temple” at home through prayer, scripture study, and uplifting music.

I heard once that a mom would take 2 hours of her week to have “temple time” even though she couldn’t physically get the the temple because of distance and time. During that time she would study about the temple.

How do you find time to go to the temple? (Especially if you have little kids…)

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So far on our virtual temple tour we have been to these temples:

I have more temple pictures. It’ll probably take the rest of the year to edit them!

By the way! I finally joined Instagram. You can follow me here.

My LDS Temple boards on Pinterest is here.

Random Photography Ramble: Why do I like to do this star burst effect? Because it was about noon day when we arrived at the temple and there was no clouds in the sky. I usually like to take pictures during sunrise or sunset with clouds to help defuse the light. Lunch time really isn’t the best time for lighting so I think the light “burst” adds to the picture instead of just having a plan blue sky. You can learn how to do the star effect here.

Family, Photography, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Pose Ideas for Husband and Wife Pictures

February 13, 2014 Hubbard's Cupboard 2 Comments

Well January was kinda crazy. I was trying to get my life back together after the holidays. We went on vacation in October and November. Then Christmas came along and my birthday. I also spent all January trying to recover from being sick and my data disaster. Now it’s already mid February… Crazy! Good news! My computer is cleaned. The laundry is finally caught up and my apartment looks decent. I feel like I can actually sit down and write a nice blog post cause my kids are taking naps. So here we go!

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My old roommate Catherine came into town and she wanted an updated family picture.

Catherine and Dalton said they didn’t want another picture in front of fall colors nor did they want her pictures to look like engagement pictures. So this is what we came up with:

Theme: Urban

Location: 341 S. Main Street, Salt Lake City, Utah – Alleyway Between Maxwell’s and Array Salon

Time: We did dusk/twilight but it didn’t really matter too much because this area is in between tall buildings that block the sun.

I wanted to point out how good they were at posing!!! They came up with a lot of creative husband and wife / couple poses.

So, I want to write a little more about Catherine. She was one of the seven girls I ended up rooming with during my first year of college. She is amazing! She has so many talents especially in writing and journalism. My favorite thing about Catherine is that she makes everyone feel genuinely loved.

Every guy loved Catherine and wanted to date her. She ended up waiting for Dalton while he was on his 2 year LDS mission. They got married in the Bountiful Utah Temple in December of 2011.

Catherine and Dalton have been married for a little over two years and it’s obvious that they are really happy.

So what’s their secret? Why are they so happy? How are they making their marriage work?

I asked her specifically about how has their decision of being married in a LDS temple has helped their marriage.

This is what Catherine said:

“Because we were married in the temple, we are able to connect every choice we make in our lives to our overall purpose and ultimate destiny. Our journey together is real. When we face trials and uncertainties in life, we can always find joy in knowing there is a purpose and a plan for us. The temple made us an eternal team, and we are always reminded of that when we go back to the temple. This encourages us to focus all of our attention on being the best supporter we can of our teammate’s goals and dreams.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Who are you?

February 2, 2014 Hubbard's Cupboard 3 Comments

Every person on this planet is a child of God.[1] Each is a precious, son or daughter of a Heavenly Father. What does this mean? Why do we care? Well the succint answer is that this simple fact makes all the different in our day to day actions.

Who is God, our Heavenly Father? That is one of the most important questions to answer in this life (and can only truly be answered by praying to Him). But I will give a short synopsis of who I know He is, and why that makes a significant difference in my life.

Heavenly Father is a loving, perfect, just, merciful Father. Much as a goodly Father listens to his small children, talks to them, helps them understand their world, and guides them, our Heavenly Father does to us in our world.As a small child is in his Father’s care, so are we. Our Heavenly Father “wants to communicate with us, and we can communicate with Him through sincere prayer.”

Because each of us is the child of a perfect, omniscient, loving Heavenly Father, each of us has divine potential to become like Him. We may, through faith in the Savior Jesus Christ, repent, and be baptised, and be changed into a better person everyday, en route to eventually attaining perfection. This is our Fathers goal, so see each us reach perfection. And I know it is possible!

One of the best ways for us to learn how to be perfect is in our families. Heavenly Father made it so that children are naturally born only into families with a mother and father, so that we could prepare to become a perfect Parent as He is and return to live with Him one day. Even though sometimes our earthly father or mother is missing from our lives, He is still our Heavenly Father and is constantly there providing for us, listening to our cries, and helping us.

But as is all good stories, their is an evil character as well as the good. Satan, the great master of lies, is concurrently trying to bring us down to destruction, and cause us to fail in reaching perfection. He knows that if he can trick us, he can destroy our happiness, and thus is constantly seeking to tear down, destroy, confuse, and hinder all that is good. His primary focus is to destroy families, and cause disbelief in Jesus Christ, because that is the center of our happiness and salvation. [2]

Thus comes to one of the greatest and most important gifts given to every single person… the power to choose. Because God knows we cannot become like Him without choosing to do so, He has made us free to choose good or evil. To choose if we will seek for God, or follow Satan. There are no other alternatives, although it may appear so. Eventually all have to make the choice whether they will believe in God, or not, and thus follow Satan. But the freedom to choose is ours, and remains ours as long as we do good. [3]

There will be temptations and persuasions from both sides, as we can see throughout life. The powers of good and evil are in constant struggle. But we can choose to follow the Good, to believe in our Heavenly Father, to follow His commandments and eventually one day return to our Father in Heaven. He has given us a guiding roadmap, through the Bible, the Book of Mormon and the living Prophets today. He has not abandoned us and loves us more deeply than we can imagine.

Even if we follow the good there will be problems and trials. Our loving Father gave us the freedom to choose, and with that freedom we will make mistakes. Just as a good father lets his child have the freedom to ride a bike, he also must allow us the possibility of falling over and scraping our knee, otherwise we would not be able to learn. Sometimes we have problems just because we live in a mortal world where sickness, disease, disasters and other things happen. But the truth is if we follow Heavenly Father’s plan, and believe in Jesus Christ we can return and live with God one day, in spite of all the problems and trials of this mortal test. And I’m sure it will be a sweet family reunion for all, if we have chosen to believe in and follow our perfect, loving Father in Heaven.

-Dallin

1. We are Children of God https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1998/10/we-are-children-of-god?lang=eng.

2. The Family Proclamation http://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation

3. Book of Mormon; 2 Nephi 2:27 “Wherefore, men are ^afree according to the ^bflesh; and ^callthings are ^dgiven them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to ^echoose ^fliberty and eternal ^glife, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be ^hmiserable like unto himself.”

Family Life, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Belated Happy Birthday to Me! – Advice Needed

January 24, 2014 Hubbard's Cupboard 16 Comments

THANK YOU x 1,000,000!!! For all the nice Birthday comments, wishes, messages, notes, calls, emails, cards and text. I read every single one of them and wish I had time to write everyone of you back personally!

We celebrated by going to Tucanos. It seemed like everyone at Tucanos was having a birthday. That’s probably because they give out a free meal on your birthday! We’ve never done it before because I never remember to sign up but I was so happy when I got my free meal card in the mail. Micah got in free so we really only had to pay for Dallin’s meal. It was awesome and super yummy Brazilian Churrasco.

After Tucanos, we played games with neighbors. We played the Celestial Marriage Pursuit game. It was a funny Mormon version of the Newlywed game.

We also took Micah and Quentin to an indoor fun park this weekend. Micah enjoyed going on all the rides and insisted on riding the merry-go-round by himself! Dallin and I are way too big for the playground but the rules said that kids under the age of 3 needed to have parental supervision the whole time. So we took turns going into the jungle gym with him. Dallin had fun but my knees just hurt.

Funny side story — I was crawling in one of the longer tunnels and I was really struggling. My face probably looked really scary because a little kid coming from the other direction said to me “Can you not make that face?” [Blahahaha!] At the time I didn’t think it was so funny cause I really felt like I was stuck in the tunnel so I said to him “Sorry I cannot” with the same facial expression and crawled as fast as I could out of that tunnel.

Anyways… I need your help! I got a new set of the 2013 edition of the scriptures for my Birthday. My old set was falling apart. I read these books pretty much everyday for the last 6 years! I’ve taken my scriptures around the world with me. I treasure the scriptures and I honestly just can’t go a day without reading them. I sometimes read scriptures on my phone or iPad but I LOVE reading scriptures while holding a physical book. I don’t think I can ever give that up books even in the digital age.

My question is: How do you mark up your scriptures? I’m trying to figure out how to mark my new ones up.

Architecture, Family Life, Photography, Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Rexburg Idaho Temple at Sunrise

January 7, 2014 Hubbard's Cupboard 9 Comments

This is a picture of the Rexburg Idaho Temple at sunrise taken on Thanksgiving morning 2013. One unique thing about this temple is that there is a big wheat filled in front of it. There is also a bunch of wheat in the temple garden and wheat carvings in the architecture. Wheat is a symbolizes the righteous people being gathered together in the Parable of the Tares in the New Testament.

I haven’t felt like blogging the last couple of days because I lost about 300 gb of data while I was backing up my pictures. I accidentally unplug my 1TB hard drive during a massive data transfer. When I plugged it back in the computer went ahead and tried to fix the corrupted files but instead half of my pictures/videos disappeared. I was emotionally distraught for a few hours before I could stop moping about it but actually do something about it (I need to get over my picture addiction… haha!). Over the last week I’ve been able to recover around 15,000 files after consulting with my family and friends. I also read lots of online forums. A lot of the files I found were corrupted but I’m grateful for the ones I did find. This experience has been a blessing in disguise. First, because I did have a back-up of most of the pictures so I didn’t loose too many… just about 4 months worth of pictures. Second, I got to use the skills I learned studying computer science in school about data storage and data deletion. Third, I learned NEVER to use ctrl-x for video or picture transfer. Fourth, it made me more humble and also grateful that only half the files disappeared and not all the files. Fifth, I am never letting that happen again!! I’m so grateful I found so many files but it is going to take days to organize the files and check for duplicates. It would have been much easier if this never happened but of course, life doesn’t always work that way. God does want us to learn from our mistakes.

I was able to recover pictures I took back in November when our family took a trip up to BYU-I in Rexbug, Idaho for Thanksgiving. I prayed hard that I would find these temple pictures because I knew I only had one copy of them. I felt confident that I would find this folder but all the methods of data recover I tried didn’t work or the files I did find were corrupted. I guess my faith was tested.

Finally, last night I found these files while searching through ~121,000 possible deleted files using Recuva.

What a big blessing! I know Heavenly Father answered my prayer. He really didn’t have to but I know God is very merciful and full of grace if we are willing to pray to Him and have faith.

What blessings have you seen in your life lately?

Our Wedding, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Marriage: 1 man, 1 women

December 22, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 1 Comment

I woke up with my email, news feeds, Facebook, and WordPress swarmed with the news about “A federal judge Friday struck down Utah’s voter-approved constitutional amendment — which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” [Deseret News]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has already put up an official statement on Court Ruling Regarding Same-Sex Marriage in Utah. It is short and simple.

The Church has been consistent in its support of traditional marriage while teaching that all people should be treated with respect. This ruling by a district court will work its way through the judicial process. We continue to believe that voters in Utah did the right thing by providing clear direction in the state constitution that marriage should be between a man and a woman and we are hopeful that this view will be validated by a higher court.

Emmanuel Knowles’ Blog is what motivated me to re-blog. I’ve already blog about this issue before here.

This fight will continue but we must not give up hope, our beliefs or faith. Satan wants us to get discourage and give up; but the prophets have already declared that “voters in Utah did the right thing”. We can’t give up now. We may not win in the higher courts but I know that Jesus Christ is the ultimate judge. We will all have to stand before Jesus Christ one day and testify to Him that we’ve done the best we can to to defend His laws.

There is hope. If you’re struggling with same-gender attraction or any other temptations. God can help you. God loves you. God can bring you happiness and peace in your life. Pray to God, I know He will listen to you and He give you answers to your prayers.

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Here is an official website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about this issue:

Love One Another: A Discussion on Same-Sex Attraction

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Dallin and I have been married for 3.5 years. It’s been a lot of hard work but marriage and raising a family has been the most fulfilling thing we’ve done as a couple. In a short 3.5 years, we have gone through tough times and good times. Marriage has brought us lots of joy and happiness and we want to protect the gift of marriage for future generations. We believe that marriage between 1 man and 1 women is ordained of God. [Family Proclamation to the World]

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Architecture, Photography, Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel, Utah

Star Effect Photography on Religious Architecture

November 19, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 6 Comments

Alright, I’m going to continue our virtual temple tour with the St. George Utah LDS Temple. There wasn’t very good lighting that day because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! So here’s a photography tip, to get good LDS Temple pictures you need diffused lighting which is either: a cloudy day, sunrise, sunset, or twilight. Well, because I didn’t have any of those, I decided to just play around with the “star effect” also known as the “starburst effect“.

To get the star effect you need to point your camera right into a light source. So an obvious light source is the sun. Other light sources could be head lights on a car or a lamp post.

Next, you need to crank up your F number on your camera to create a small aperture. Aperture is measure by F/# so the bigger the F number the smaller the aperture. You can do this by being in the Av mode which is the aperture priority mode on your digital SLR camera. You don’t need a nice lens or anything you can just use the lens that comes with the camera.

These two pictures below were taken at F/22.

If you can get a small light source you can use a smaller F number. This picture was taking at F/8.

On a side note, we believe in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka Mormon or LDS) that these temples are “Beacon[s] to the World.” A beacon as define in Merriam-Webster online dictionary is: “a strong light that can be seen from far away and that is used to help guide ships, airplanes, etc.” If you have every seen one of these LDS Temples at night, you would know that these temples glow. You can see these temples from far away. We believe that temples are beacons because temples draw people nearer to God and Jesus Christ.

Anyways… if you want to learn more about LDS Temples please visit my other posts about temples!

BTW you don’t have to be a member of our church to take pictures of our temples. So, please come take pictures of our temples! Have you ever taken pictures of LDS Temples? Please share!

Architecture, California, Family Life, Photography, Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

San Diego Temple dubbed “Mormon Disneyland”

November 15, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 28 Comments

My husband had to go to San Diego, California recently for a conference trip. He never likes leaving the family at home so we all went with him. While we were planning the trip, the question came up: “Should we go to Disneyland?” We went back and forth on the decision but we finally decided that we didn’t want to take our kids to Disneyland yet because they are too young (2 years, 3 months). We had planned on driving from Salt Lake City to San Diego; so as an alternative to Disneyland, we decided to stop at every temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) along the way.

Micah, our two year old, loved our temple trip! He said “TEMPLE! TEMPLE!” every time we arrived at one. Traveling with kids can be very stressful, especially when they get restless and start crying. Stopping at the temples was the perfect rest stop because we could feel the Spirit instantly as we stepped foot on the temple grounds. When we got to the temples, we strolled around and took pictures of each temple.

I decided I’m going to blog about the San Diego La Jolla Temple first because it is by far the most unique temple I have ever been too and I’ve been to quite a few. As you drive south towards downtown San Diego on the freeway I-5, you suddenly see this magnificent castle on the left hand side of the road. This temple gets random visitors, who get off the freeway, just to see what kind of building it is. I love all temples but the San Diego temple is exceptionally beautiful! We heard multiple times on the trip that the San Diego temple is nicknamed “Mormon Disneyland.” Even customer reviews on Google say stuff like “I’m not Mormon, but it’s a spectacular view from the freeway, reminds me of Disneyland.”

While some people spend lots of money getting married in the Disneyland castle. There are far greater sacrifices to get married in a LDS Temple. First, we have to be a member of the LDS Church and have a testimony of the Godhead, atonement, and restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then, we have to be worthy to enter the temple by obeying all the commandments of God the best we can. Some of these commandments include tithing, law of chastity, the 10 commandments, and word of wisdom. Finally, we have to witness to our bishop that we believe we are worthy to attend the temple during a temple recommend interview. I know what you’re thinking “Nobody is perfect enough to go to the temple!” Well, because we are imperfect people, we can repent to become worthy to go to the temple. When we repent, we are cleansed through the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Now you’re probably thinking “Holy cow! That’s a lot of work!” Getting married in a LDS Temple is worth all the sacrifice because marriages in the temple are sealed up for time and all eternity and not just “till death due us part.” These temples are literally “the happiest place[s] on earth.” But not only that, Temples are where we can go to learn more about God’s plan for us. Members of the LDS Church, whether single or married, starting at the age of 12, can attend and re-attend the temples regularly to pray and learn more about the Plan of Happiness. If you’re already married, you and your current spouse can prepare yourselves to go to the temple to get sealed. We don’t have to be perfect people to attend the temple but constantly attending the temple will help us become perfect.

I can’t express in words how happy, wonderful and peaceful I feel to be inside a temple. It doesn’t matter how many problems I have that day, if I can make it to the temple, I will feel peace. My problems don’t go away but I receive strength and comfort from God when I attend the temple. I can also more easily gather my thoughts when I’m at the temple, especially when I am confused about something in my life.

I invite everyone to attend or prepare themselves to attend the temple so you can witness for yourself the peace and serenity of being inside the House of the Lord. I invite you to the temple to receive eternal blessings of salvation and eternal families. I invite you to visit one of our temples even if you can’t go in. They are spectacular and you may even be greeted with a free tour guide. Some of the LDS Temples have visitor centers where you can learn more about what we do inside a temple. To find you local temple please visit the LDS Temple website.

What is your favorite LDS Temple?

Child #1: Micah, Children, England, Family Life, Photography, Temples, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Travel

Preston England Temple Pictures

April 22, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 6 Comments

The Dublin Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints went on a temple trip in March. The stake spent a whole day traveling to get the temple by taking the ferry and bus. Then they spent the entire week doing temple work all day long. The temple patrons and their families can stay at the temple accommodations which is like a hotel. The temple only charges 11 pounds per person per night. My husband called it EFY for adults. 🙂

I’ve never had to travel so far to go to the temple since I’m from Salt Lake City. It was so nice to be able to go to the temple again! I haven’t been for three months. Every time I go to the temple I can feel the peace and comfort of the Holy Ghost. I’m so grateful that I can go to the temple to pray to God and ponder about life’s questions.

Can’t help but to add some pictures of little Micah. 🙂

Family Life, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Living a life guided by revelation

April 19, 2013 Hubbard's Cupboard 6 Comments

Today marks five years since I got baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was one of the most difficult but life changing decisions I have ever made. I was never a religious person. My family wasn’t religious either. I didn’t know if there was a God nor did I care to find out. Whenever I saw missionaries I would run and hide behind the couch. I was an epitome of the “disappointing investigator”.

Growing up in Utah, most of my friends were “Mormons“. They invited me to church, activities, dances and camps. The social part of church was fun and all but I was never interested in learning religion. Most of my friends tried once or twice to teach me the gospel but usually left me alone after I told them I wasn’t interested. Some of them were more persistant than others. 🙂

Yet, like most people I went through a series of hard times in my life. I was plain miserable and depressed. No matter how hard I try to pick myself up, I felt hopeless and my life was falling apart.

I could go on with details of my conversion but the details don’t matter as much as how it happened. Eventually after years and years of people inviting me to read the Book of Mormon, I was finally ready and willing to read the book. Along with reading the Book of Mormon, I started to pray everyday to ask God if He exist and if the Book of Mormon is true.

It was March of 2008 when I started reading the Book of Mormon and I got baptized on April 19, 2008. I didn’t know very much doctrine and I didn’t have a sure knowledge of God when I got baptized. I just knew that I felt the Holy Ghost a few distinct instances during the time I was truly investigating the Church. However, the feelings always left me and I had to act on pure faith. It was not an easy decision! I felt very criticized and doubtful at times but that just lead me back to my knees to pray to ask God again. On my baptism day, I felt dark and lonely but all the darkness went away when I made it to my baptism and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Now after five years, I can truly say that I know without a doubt that God lives and that He does answer prayers. I know without a doubt that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on the earth and is lead by apostles and prophets that are called by God. I also know that Jesus Christ is the foundation of this Church. I know all this because I have lived the last five years of my life being guided by revelation from God through the gift of the Holy Ghost.

My Original Plans

Graduate from high school, go to the University of Utah
Graduate in 4 years in Electrical Engineering
Get a nice job and make lots of money
Get a MBA and be promoted
Become successful!
And hopefully get married sometime around 30 if the right guy comes
And may be have kids sometime

God’s Plans for Me

2008 – Get baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints

2008 – Move to Logan, go to Utah State University on a scholarship and meet lots of new friends. Attend church, institute, read scriptures and pray everyday, be part of lots of clubs, and here have the best roommates in the world!

2008 – Grow spiritually so here are some callings: Family Home Evening Mom, Primary Teacher, Ward Missionary, Bulletin Board Specialist

2009 – Meet Dallin, your future husband

2009 – Be an EFY counselor

2010 – Get engaged, go to the temple and get married in the temple

2010 – Transfer to the University of Utah and study Computer Science

2010 – Live in the University Village and meet lots of happy families.

2010 – Have some more church callings: Relief Society Presidency, Stake Primary Presidency and Ward Missionary

2011- Have a baby and name him Micah!

2012 – Graduate from college and be a full time mom

2013 – Take your family to Ireland and serve in the Bray Branch.

Has my life been easy the last five years? No. I still have lots of trials and problems. Were the decisions I’ve made easy? Not really. But has it been worth it? Most definitely! I know by experience that because the atonement of Jesus Christ my burdens can be made light. Living a life following God’s plan is not always the easiest but it has definitely been full of joy, blessings, fulfillment, and miracles.

Can you believe what I would’ve missed out on if I never decided to get baptized five years ago?! I would not be the person I am today or have my family or be in Ireland for that matter. I would be completely lost in my own world.

I love the quote by Presiden Hinkley that says “When you save a girl, you save generations.” It’s so true!!