Miscellaneous Mission Moments

A lot has happened since I last posted.  I am in charge of our St. George Temple Visitors' Center Facebook page, so I am posting photos every week.  This month we are going to feature The Book of Mormon.  We also started our "Why I Believe" series of lectures and music that will run from September through April of next year.  Scott has been in charge of getting that going and publicized. Some of the fun people we have coming are David L. Beck, Sheri Dew, Elaine Dalton, Jon Schmidt, and the Durrants.  Janessa and Sherry helped us design a poster with our new logo that Elder Cleverly's son in law made.  Also, Wendy cut around a picture I took of Elder Bednar and his wife  and put it on a white background so that I could post it on Facebook.  It's a good thing my kids have skills.

Elder Bednar came to a stake conference, and he spoke to all the young missionaries in a special three hour question and answer session.  They were pretty excited about it.  At the Saturday night session of stake conference that we went to, he told us that we all need saving ordinances and that all we do in the church is to assist each other to receive the ordinances and covenants of the temple.  He also said that the world isn't going to get any better, and that's why we need to keep the Sabbath Day holy and prepare better to partake of the sacrament.  Then we will be able to remain unspotted from the world.  Our agency is to choose God and love and serve others. We can use the cleansing and strengthening power of the atonement.

A couple of weeks ago while we were working at the tabernacle, one of the facilities management men took me and Scott up into the attic.  Then Scott went up two metal ladders into the steeple where the clock works are.  The gears are in the first picture.  Also, Scott was able to go out on the little ledge and take a photo of the clock up close.  It was very fun.  I was waiting in the attic and didn't know they were going outside, or I would have run out to take a photo.

We have had miscellaneous interesting things happen at some of our sites.  At the Brigham Young Winter Home a large branch broke off the pecan tree and crashed down in the night.  Thank goodness no one was around.  Then at the tabernacle, a swarm of bees attached to a branch on one of the trees there.  Luckily they only stayed one day.  Then a couple of days later a small bat was found hanging upside down in the top corner of the back door of the tabernacle.  Meanwhile, the cotton at the Jacob Hamblin Home is growing great, and we like to show it to the people who have never seen cotton plants before.

Finally, today we went to the baptism of a young adult woman who Scott talked to in the annex.  She came in to get a Book of Mormon, and he put his e-mail address on a card that he put inside the book in case she had any questions.  It's a good thing he did because about a month later he got an e-mail from her asking for help getting in contact with the missionaries.  They had set up an appointment with her and didn't show up.  She didn't know what to do, and then she remembered she had Scott's

 e-mail in her Book of Mormon.  He contacted the sister missionaries at our visitors' center, and Sis. Parada went to see her.  It turned out that there was a misunderstanding with the elders on which day the appointment was.  Everything turned out great because the elders did teach her the lessons, and today she was baptized.  We went, and I met her for the first time.  It was fun to see the result of Scott's efforts.   One of the blessings of working in the visitors' center is that people come to you, but you rarely get to know what happens to them after they go home, so it's hard to see the fruits of your labor.  Today was the exception, and it was good.  

Elder Burt with Haley Shepard