One Week In the St. George Temple Visitors' Center Mission

Last Thursday we arrived at our mission site.  We have deluxe accommodations due to the fact that we own a house down here in St. George.  It helped with the initial adjustment to mission life.  Life as a missionary is life in the fast lane.  Things are always going on.  In addition to our assignments at the different historic sites, we have attended one welcome and goodbye party, two firesides, one talk by Susan Easton Black on Joseph F. Smith, one Monday night dinner with the senior missionaries, an early weekly meeting with training, and experienced one snow storm.  We have had a week of training at each of the sites with different missionary couples.  One of the couples, the Dooleys,  is from Soda Springs, Idaho and knows my Aunt Faun and worked with Lorraine (her daughter) in the YW.

Sister and Elder Burt in front of the St. George Temple in the snow.

 The next morning we had a beautiful day.  I had a chance to walk in Snow Canyon and up our sandstone hill we always climb with the grandkids.  There was water in the indentations of the rock.

This a view of the golf course from our back deck.  Ready for Beeg, Neal, Tony,  and Josh.

 

 Snow Canyon with pools of water.

Our awesome sunset from the back deck.


At the Brigham Young Home about a month ago, relatives of Hyrum Smith identified and showed verification that the chair pictured below was made by Hyrum Smith.  We think it might get moved to SLC or somewhere else because of that.

Brigham Young Home with pink blossoms.

Most of the cherry blossoms and white flowering trees are just about finished blooming already.

Today at the tabernacle, I gave out my first Book of Mormon to a non-member.  It was pretty exciting!  Then later, when I told another group about the windows being paid for by Peter Nielsen, they got tears in their eyes.  Most of the missionaries like the tabernacle the best because of the nice spirit that is there and the feelings people get.  Although, today one of the missionaries told Scott that the roadrunners hang out on the hill behind the Jacob Hamblin house when the weather gets warmer.

It was fun to get our first letter from Amy, Em, Will, and Brock.

Today we were assigned extra duties.  I and two others are to take pictures and send them into the church for our St. George Temple Visitors's Center Facebook page for a weekly post.  Scott is to work with the community in promoting awareness and visiting to the visitors' center.  So far, so good!

MTC

 We entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah on February 9, 2014.  Young missionaries met us at the drop off area and took us and our luggage to our room in 2M.  Cute Paige Newman greeted us in our building and gave us a hug.  She works at the MTC.  Before unpacking, we met in a conference room along with the 64 other senior missionary couples to be oriented and find out where everyone was assigned to serve.  We discovered another couple that would be working in St. George with us, the Fullers from Idaho.  Some of the more exotic places were Kiev Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Mongolia, and the Cook Islands.  We even found the couple going to Paris to take the place of our neighbors, the Walls, who will be home in March. 

 In the lobby of the MTC are some architectural drawings of the new buildings and changes being made to the missionary training center.  Three new five story buildings and a square grassy area where missionaries can say goodbye to their families are some of the additions being made.

    This is a photo of a First Edition Book of Mormon that is on display under glass in the MTC lobby.

 Everyone gets their picture taken by the big world map in the MTC hallway.  Elder and Sister Burt are pointing to St. George, Utah.  Our wonderful sons, Nathan and B.J. set the example by going to the Dominican Republic and Argentina. 

                                                                     Our MTC Trainers

 








                                             Sister Sharp,              
Brother Zundel, and Brother Gubler were great!
We did lots of role playing and learned concepts from Preach My Gospel.

                                       Some of the senior couple missionaries in our group.


Our Purpose

Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.

Kate just before being baptized by her father, Rob.

                                         Provo Utah Temple ~ right across from the MTC

                                                   VISITOR'S CENTER TRAINING

Our missionary training included two and half days about visitor centers.  To start out our experience, we drove to the Salt Lake City Temple Visitor's Center and took a tour with the young sister missionaries on Temple Square.

                                                              

                                                             The Salt Lake City Temple

 The sister missionaries were enthusiastic and bore testimony of their faith and love for Jesus Christ.

                                                               Salt Lake Tabernacle
                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

                               Assembly Hall by Seagull Monument at Temple Square SLC

After our tour we went back to the Provo MTC to do more role playing and practice talking to guests that come to our historic sites.  On Wednesday morning, our final time eating at the cafeteria,  I had the most perfect breakfast!  This is what I had:  one BYU maple bar, two pieces of bacon, a bowl of cracked wheat, one hard boiled egg, some hash browned potatoes, and milk.

     
Our MTC room with suitcases being packed to leave for home to pack up more stuff to drive to our mission tomorrow.  Ready or not, St. George Visitor's Center Mission, here we come! 























                                     

Mission Call ~ Opening Letter

On December 11, 2014, the long awaited mission call letter came from LDS Church Headquarters.
We were nervous and excited!  As many of our children and grandchildren who could, gathered at Sherry's for the letter opening.  We even had some people hooked up on a computer, so they could be a part of the experience.  The call was to the St. George Utah Mission, Visitor's Center.  Awesome!!!