Looking forward to looking back

In less than two weeks, The Boy and I will embark on a brief journey nearly thirty years in the making. The seeds of this trip were planted as I walked and biked the streets of Miami as a missionary. I can remember thinking more than once during my two year service how awesome it would be to one day return to this place with one, or all, of my children. Now, twenty seven years since that two year service ended, The Boy and I are heading to south Florida where I'll get a chance to show him a bit of what I experienced.

We are heading down there to tour the Ft. Lauderdale Temple before it opens in May. Thirty years ago, a temple there was, by and large, a thing of fantasy. It was also a thing of faith for those members of the Church. I'm so looking forward to seeing it. I'm eager for my son to see it as well.

I'm really looking forward to looking back. Taking The Boy to the neighborhoods I lived and worked in is going to be an emotional experience. After all this time, I know that things won't look the same and hopefully some of the apartments, or hovels, I lived in have long since been razed. I want to be able to give The Boy a sense of what it was like as he is on the cusp of his own service later this year.

I'll probably wind up embarrassing him several times during the trip. He'll need to brush up on his Spanish so he can explain to passers-by on Calle Ocho why the middle-aged white guy is crying while he's eating Moros y Cristianos and platanos maduros. Yeah, I'm looking forward to looking back.