How It All Started

I have one sister (and no brothers), and our birthdays are almost four years apart to the day. Growing up we were never super close, and while I was serving my two-year LDS mission to Detroit that thought bothered me, so when I returned home, I was determined to have a closer relationship with my sister. At the time we were both attending the local community college, and I found that the college offered a jewelry-making class, so with a little bit of persuasion I got her to take the class with me. 

One of the assignments in the class was to make a lost-wax cast ring. Having just gotten off my mission, I had spiritual things on my mind quite often. So while I was slowly whittling a block of wax down to something recognizable as a ring, I came up with this three-facet design, with the San Diego LDS Temple on the top face, and the 8 point star (an architectural design found on both the outside and inside of the temple) on either side. 

Previously I had made myself a good, fat, manly ring of a different style, but discovered that my finger sweat a lot because of it, so on this one I made a cut in the underside of the ring (a split-band effect) so my finger could breathe, and I was quite pleased with the result. This San Diego temple ring ended up being something I wore for the next few years.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.