I keep thinking about all those migrating Monarchs and how they ride the winds. There are millions of them and they are so small and hardly noticed but they have been coming in waves heading North all last week. When our family went back to the Nauvoo Temple dedication there were thousands of visitors and I felt very small and insignificant though thankful to be there. I couldn't help thinking then of all the planning and work and effort it took to go and to realized that all those thousands of people waiting in lines and walking around all had taken time, effort and sacrifice to be there and why did we all think about it together? What makes us swarm just like the butterfly's every once in awhile? We knew of one family that has driven for 2 weeks in a rickety van to get there and others who had saved for months. They were prepared for us when we got there. Extra chairs and tables at church were already set up and different wards around the temple came to help out the visitors who had traveled to get there. Conference time brings on prepared crowds too. I remember as a young child sitting on the Temple grounds around the tabernacle listening to the talks over the speakers if we couldn't get in to the seats. Long lines then too.
The butterflys run into obsticles like cars, shifting winds, children and dogs, bird swooping, and buses driving by. But still thousands arrive at their destinations. Did you know that their children's great-grandchildren are the ones who end up going back to the same place they did? Why did I end up visiting the same place my great-great-great grandmother lived? Of course we've only done it once in a lifetime and I hope my children and their children go back to visit without waiting a few generations.