What a gift life is—and there are ninety things I would most like to do with that gift. before I die. Those that are marked are the ones I have had the awesome joy of already doing:
Attend a temple on each continent
✔ Walk where Jesus walked
Go on an African safari
Serve a mission
✔ Sail a small craft on the ocean
Visit New Zealand
Collect autumn leaves in New England
✔ Do an endowment for a family member in the Nauvoo Temple
✔ See England’s crown jewels
Eat lunch in Malmohus, where my Swedish ancestors joined the Church
Spend the night in an English cottage
Eat a picnic on a hillside in Tuscany
✔ Savor Baklava in Greece
✔ See the pyramids
✔ Wade along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea
Touch the life of a child
Design, piece, and stitch an heirloom quilt
✔ Find an unexpected treasure
Complete the research and temple work for eight complete generations of my ancestors
Hold a great-grandchild
Write my personal history (500 pages down, . . . )
✔ Eat dinner on a paddleboat on the Mississippi River
Hold Jessica’s, Nicholas’s, and Melissa’s children in my arms
✔ Picnic at the base of a giant redwood tree
✔ Milk a cow
Stand on a glacier in Alaska
✔See the Northern Lights
Ride in a gondola through the “streets” of Venice
✔ Stroke a rattlesnake’s skin
Swim with dolphins
Attend a live performance of an Italian tenor
✔ Eat fried green tomatoes
Stand in the celestial room surrounded by all my children
✔ See the Mona Lisa
Stand in the Sistine Chapel
✔ Sail on the Nile River
Have my picture taken on the observation deck of the Empire State Building
✔ Eat fish and chips in London
Design and create a piece of jewelry
Read all of C.S. Lewis’s books
Eat fresh pineapple at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii
Attend all the temples in Utah (seems there are more every year!)
✔ Meet a prophet
Visit Book of Mormon ruins in Central America
Walk through a field of heather on a Scottish moor
Visit the rose gardens on Victoria Island
Eat lobster at a restaurant on the coast of Maine
✔ Ride in a hot air balloon
Fly over the Grand Canyon in a small aircraft
Photograph the fjords in Norway
Collect sea shells in the Caribbean
✔ Visit the Eiffel Tower
✔ Sail across the Sea of China
✔ Touch the walls of the synagogue in Capernaum
Stand on Ellis Island
Eat a mango in Tahiti
Understand the book of Isaiah
Write and publish a novel to critical acclaim
✔ Learn how to weave baskets
Attend an LDS Church meeting in Africa
Snorkel along the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia
Embroider a temple apron
✔ Get a right-hand diamond ring
Eat buttered Taber corn at the Calgary Stampede
✔ Pray in the Sacred Grove
✔ Read the Bible
Ride a bicycle around Bainbridge Island
Visit Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe
✔ Ride a cable car in San Francisco
✔ Eat lunch at a sidewalk café in Paris
Walk on the Great Wall of China
✔ See Michelangelo’s “David”
✔ Ride a bullet train in Japan
✔ Eat crab on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf
✔ Wander through the cells at Alcatraz
✔ Knit a sweater
See a show on Broadway in New York City
Visit the orchid gardens in Fiji
Have my teeth replaced
✔ Create a shadow box that displays ancestral keepsakes
Take a class in Book of Mormon archaeology
Ride in a convertible up Highway 101 from Los Angeles to San Francisco
✔ Ride the Maid ‘O the Mist at Niagara Falls
✔ Visit Herod’s summer palace atop Masada
✔ See Mount Fuji
✔ Ride in a convertible through the eucalyptus forests outside Carmel
✔ Spend the day at the Louvre in Paris
My greatest desire: See the face of the Savior