Sixteenth Week of Our Mission

Sixteenth Week

Salt Lake Temple Square Mission
September 22, 2013

Fall is in the air and we are saddened.  The flowers on Temple Square are magnificent and in a few short weeks they will be gone.   We are hoping that they will last until General Conference, but we will see.  Since we walk everywhere, we will remember the hot summer days and wish that they were here again.

This last week, we had a lovely Family Home Evening activity.  Our counselor in the mission presidency invited all of us to come to his stake for an evening of fun and food.  Groups of 20 sisters or so went to homes for appetizers before our wonderful dinner.  Our host family was so kind and loving and made some delicious treats.  The sisters ate and ate and enjoyed each other’s company and of course the food.  Then we went to the stake center that had a pavilion in the back which was perfect to accommodate all of the sisters.  They played volleyball, threw frisbees and had fun together.  The dinner was delicious with lots of Cold Stone ice cream to end the meal.  Then we went into the chapel for a team building experience.  All in all, it was fun for everyone to get away from the Square and into a new environment.

On Monday we had another discussion with Tressa.  Some of her friends are critical of her investigation of the Church, but she is standing strong in her beliefs.  She bore a strong witness again of prophets, the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith.  Because the Call Center was down again, we used our cell phone to talk to her.  This was a bit difficult, but we plodded along.  At the end of the discussion, we asked if she would be baptized and to pick a date.  She readily agreed to the baptism, but wanted to talk to her friend, Ron, about an appropriate date for baptism.  We are hoping against hope that she will follow through with her commitment.

 

We have talked about going into the tunnels under Temple Square and this week we did some exploring.  There is a maze of tunnels that go from one building to another and if you aren’t knowledgeable you could get lost.  There seem to be no signs to lead and guide you, but we found our way to the Church Office Building, the Tabernacle where we found the dressing rooms for the Choir, the Temple, the  Assembly Hall and from there exited from behind the organ to the amazement of the visitors.  We thought we could use these tunnels in cold weather but maybe they are restricted.  It was fun and also kind of scary because at times we did not know where we were.

We didn’t have to go to the Beehive House on Friday because they were filming a movie there.  We got the opportunity to talk to a lady who is involved with Church films and she told us all about it.  Cast and crew were in the house preparing for the filming mid-week.  Apparently the movie will revolve around the first sister missionaries in the Church back in the 1890’s.  They did a couple of scenes in the Beehive House and then they will make their way to England to finish the project.  For the sister missionaries it was a thrill to hear about this endeavor.

We are beginning to go into the Call Center on a regular basis now.  We can chat and talk with people who have questions.  Sometimes you have to wait for someone to call or chat, consequently we feel we could use our time more wisely elsewhere.  Anyway, it has been interesting because oftentimes these calls or chats revolve around anti-Mormon questions.  In the winter our time there will increase because there will be fewer guests on Temple Square.  However, there are still people coming to visit.  As a matter of fact today we had almost 450 people attend the Organ Recital.  We couldn’t believe it because people were lined up to the South Visitor’s Center.