MTC

 

Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission

May 18, 2014

We can’t believe it but last year at this time we had only days before we entered the MTC.  Most of our mission is over now and we relish our remaining months.  We take things for granted sometimes to be close to the temple, to sit in the Brigham Young house and go into its farthest corners where others cannot go, to be in the Tabernacle with all its history, to hear the organ on a daily basis, to be at “Music and the Spoken Word” every Sunday and visit with people from all over the world and be His representatives.  Lately with all that has been going on we are totally exhausted, but isn’t it better to be exhausted than have nothing to do.  We are indeed grateful for this opportunity.

Volunteers planting flowers

All of our gorgeous tulips, daffodils and pansies were pulled out from the flower beds this week on Temple Square.  Our hearts just sank as we saw all those beautiful flowers stuffed into garbage bags, the bulbs shredded into mulch for next year.  As the days go by new summer plants are being seeded and the beds will soon be a delight again.  Hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers help with this process of planting and visitors that come to the Square are in awe that so many people so willingly help.

We were thrilled to have Sister Sherri Dew speak to us on Thursday.  She has always been one of my favorite women speakers in the church.  Taggart and I were able to greet her and what a genuine and humble individual she is.  That morning she shared her philosophy of women and the priesthood.  The three words she shared in relation to this topic were keys, authority and power.  She told us it is up to us to unlock the powers of heaven because the power is given to all.  We so appreciated what she said and how she said it and her testimony and example to all of us.  It will be a memory forever.

Some of the kinks in the Hospitality Tours have to be worked out as we found out this week.  There were many tours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday with some glitches here and there. We are finding that the new Call Center at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building is making some mistakes as they schedule tours.  Hopefully these schedules can be tailored to meet our needs.  However, we did meet with some interesting people particularly from Australia, the UK and China. 

Our Part-Time Senior Couples that Assist with the Hospitality Tours

Taggart is busily working on a Full-Time Senior Handbook.  Between the Part-Time Senior Handbook and this new one, he has put in hours upon hours of work.  Both books were so needed and look terrific.  Also, another added responsibility is to provide various lunches and snacks for the sisters. Between Sister Curtis and me, we are constantly at Costco buying food for this or that.  This week and next is especially filled with food, food, food.