A Big New Blessing In Sahuarita, Arizona

Today was an historic day for the LDS church in our little corner of Arizona. For the first time, the Sahuarita Stake (formed in 2009, a little more than a year after we moved here) was able to hold Stake Conference in its very own stake center, which was completed mere weeks ago. Up to this point, our stake has had to borrow other church buildings (and once, a community auditorium) for its stake conferences, displacing many other wards in the process. But no more!

Look at us all us Barretts, back at Lorelai's blessing (our old meetinghouse is in the back)

We have lived in Sahuarita for more than four years now. Before moving here, we lived in the central part of Tucson, and attended the stake center at 22nd Street and Broadway (otherwise known as the Kenyon building). It was a large, roomy place, with stake offices, a family history center next door, and more classrooms than were necessary for our mid-sized ward. I didn't realize how good we'd had it until we moved to Sahuarita at the beginning of 2008.

The meetinghouse in Sahuarita is not only an older building (constructed in the 1970s, by the look of it), but it is also undersized, with small classrooms, a narrow chapel, and a half-sized gym/cultural hall (shortly after we moved here, an additional classroom wing was constructed onto the east side of the building). While it has plenty of storage space, and two small mother's rooms (for nursing moms), many of the classrooms have been converted to bishopric's offices and so classroom space has grown terribly limited. The stake officers have had offices in a trailer out in the parking lot!

What's more, instead of two wards and two branches using the building (as was the case for our large building back in Tucson), there have been four (sometimes five!) good-sized wards crammed into these close quarters. With the church growing so fast in this area, it was clear another building was needed. But years went by with not much progress. Government sloth, red tape, testy negotiations with landowners...you name it. But thankfully, all that has finally been swept aside.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the stake center was back in September of last year. After that, much of the early work involved clearing the land and hauling in literally thousands of tons of dirt (the land needed to be leveled out, and the dirt needed to be packed more firmly to properly hold the foundation). After laying the foundation, though, things started to proceed more quickly.

Here's what the building looked like in early summer. It made slow but steady progress throughout the year; I like to think the construction company (which had constructed several other LDS meetinghouses in the Phoenix area) knew very well what they were doing by this point!

Our new building is somewhat unique, not just its Southwest-styled exterior design (mandated by the building codes of Rancho Sahuarita), but its interior perks as well.

Our stake center was the "Legacy" architectural model (common among many large stakes of the church in the United States). By permission, it was the last Legacy model to be constructed! This means that some of the "bugs" from earlier Legacy models have been smoothed out of this iteration, as well as a few new perks being added in (multiple Wi-Fi ports throughout the building; wheelchair-accessible rostrum; additional high-quality framed artwork on the walls; and other delights). I like to think that our building, besides being beautiful inside and out, is truly one of a kind!

Nathan and I attended the adult session Saturday evening; our whole family went to the Sunday morning dedicatory session. Since people in this area of Arizona had waited years for this building (many years, in the case of some), it was one of the more crowded stake conferences I've ever attended:

However, the crowds didn't feel nearly so stifling as they have in the past. Probably because everyone was "oohing" and "aahing" together at this beautiful new gift of a building. There was a lot of happiness and optimism in the air, and the Spirit was strong throughout the session (and throughout the broadcast from Salt Lake City that followed the dedicatory session).

It will be a pleasure to attend church in this building weekly (our home ward, the Sahuarita First Ward, will have the stake center as its new home, as will the Sahuarita Second Ward and the Midvale Ward). I pray that all of us will treat it with the respect and care such a fine gift of the Lord deserves. We'll be moving into the new building for good starting on December 2nd...just a few more weeks! Yay! But before that, there will be an Open House for the whole community this coming weekend, in which the LDS Church will invite everyone to see the new building for themselves...and hopefully, come again another time.

I'll be helping out with the Open House next weekend, and I'll share more later. For now, I will go to bed happy there are now two LDS meetinghouses in Sahuarita. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, this has been a great weekend to count our blessings!