Darkness Comes Early But Christmas Lights Are Amazing

 

The view out of the spare room window early one morning, you can see our apartment has the walks cleared nice and early. Others had to contend with lots of icy snow on walks.

When the Church News said the North Visitors Center was gone, they didn't mean entirely and literally, not quite yet....  The future plan is to have two smaller ones on the south, and the beloved Christus statue will be in one of them with windows behind so you can see the temple.

A bit of evening light through what was the front windows. When the building was built, they had to build it and then lower the statue in. They had to take out some windows to remove it.

You can really see the Tabernacle now! When they take down the wall and put up fencing its going to be much more noticeable and viewable than it has been for many years. I think it will draw more people to check it out as a unique historic structure.

Christmas Lights are now officially on - They even added luminarias, I'll try to get a few photos. I'm interested to see the new shadow-illustrated Nativity story on the ceiling of the tabernacle. (later note: we never did make it to that one, hopefully they will do it again next December)

Progress on the Plaza, not so much jackhammering thank goodness. I'd hate to do some of the bending work sealing up these layers of water-proofing. There are many layers of various materials with tar between, some heat-sealed, some tar-sealed between strips. There's probably a good analogy somewhere about all the protective layers.... Like every time we study scriptures and pray we add a layer of protection for our day. (Next week I will have a good view from the JSMB. I tend to go look out when I walk around to stretch my legs - we have a whole section with no one working there in person except the rare surprise, and they have actual windows....)

And here it is, from a different vantage  point:

The building on the right is the Church Administration bldg and I am told one of those corner offices is Pres. Nelson's.

Below is another couple of photos of progress in the plaza from 3 west - (our area of the COB)

If the plaza isn't done by next year when we leave, we will have to plan a trip to come see it.

you can see they have put in electrical cable conduits all over the place

One of the best parts of being in this mission, as I'm sure I have said before,  is all the interesting things and experiences of all the other senior missionaries doing such a variety of things. One couple was in Chile when covid sent everyone home so they were moved to the Headquarters Mission and worked in Prison Ministries. They liked it so much they extended twice which maxed them out so they changed to a service mission doing the same thing. Now they are putting in papers for another mission wherever they are called. They have been on missions for thirteen years without a beak, She said they are addicted to this mission thing. (Our friends in the interpreting department are already gauging when to put in papers for a mission right after this one - hopefully they can actually get to New Zealand this time.)

One sister told of her work in the Special Projects for the Church History Library on the Emmeline B. Wells Project. Emmeline left 47 volumes of journals and among other things they are researching all the people she mentions coming into contact with. There are people working on global histories, missionary database (historical), historical sites, preservation (2.4 million rolls of microfilm have been digitized),

 It may be this sister's husband who works as a carpenter building cases for artifacts and he spoke of handling precious historical items and feeling the Spirit, can Hear Him in a noisy workshop. Repaired chairs from Eliza R. Snow, and Joseph F Smith, a bench from the SL Temple, gets to ask questions in the museum, can see the height and width of Brigham Young by seeing his actual suit of clothes-

Another works in acquisition and vetting of artifacts

One story from history being worked on included a group who graduated from nursing school at the beginning of WW1 and ended up nursing 91 military men with meningitis

One sister works in Patriarchal blessing fulfillment - you can ask online for ancestor's patriarchal blessing and they search them out.

Little notes from devotionals: Hearing a "no" answer is part of knowing that we hear Him

This life is more about developing a relationship with Christ than having what we think we are our needs met.

Hear Him - friend working at temple felt to go home immediately, found wife in diabetic crisis, would have died in minutes-

Pres Nelson - never underestimate the profound truth: the Spirit speaketh of things as they really are and really will be-

We finally had a chance to attend training that is usually done when missionaries first arrive. I'm still trying to get the photo of us with the mission president and wife, but here is the training group by the tree at the JSMB - its so tall the chandelier looks like a very big tree-topper. (we're  near the back left). The training was great, not much about Teams which we could use, but we learned a lot and finally understand more about the importance of all those "hints about your relative" that show up in emails. The more we connect them to the right people the more the computer learns about gathering and sorting information for us. I learned there are great family games that pull from your family tree (google "BYU family history games" and check out "Reverse Indexing"!) Durk had to go back to work and miss much of it but he may be able to slip out and catch things in future training weeks.

We also had several Christmas lunches/dinners to the point we didn't want to see another chocolate dessert. They had smaller gatherings due to Covid, and now everything is back to virtual, which is disappointing since we have a special mission conference with an apostle and it changed to zoom-only.

*Note on former story from Marshall Islands - not only did sister meet unexpected elders at airport, but had been inspired to build extra grass hut for them to live in. On Christmas all the different churches did the same thing - gathered everyone and spent the day celebrating with dance and music

Missionaries getting home by creative (but legal!) ways - like through Croatia! plus use it to get into other countries

Young service missionaries increasing, working where they can thrive, service couple leaders are former mission presidents and wives, (now called Mission Leaders to make it more inclusive of the work the wives do.)

link - Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into our Lives -

 

It was sad to have the Christmas lights go off Dec 31st - before evening even!

Between the JSMB and temple construction zone, actually that s the Relief Society bldg on the left

We decided to head north for shopping the one day we were doing a bit for Christmas, and during the trip got a text about Isaac's piano recital. We went on up to Ogden and really enjoyed it. All of Megan's students did great! She had it vey well-organized. Glen was hosting in his Christmas sweater - sorry I didn't a get a picture of the back where you see the Christmas stuff-

The luminarias are all scenes from the life of Christ

Our walk to the office the morning of the tree photo. We found out later that a 2-hour delay was sent out to employees, but missionaries aren't employees so all the seniors found their way through the ice and snow to empty buildings. It turns out the service missionaries (they live at home and are usually part-time) can get on the notification list but the best we can do is get the link to the page that shows announcements. 

We are really fortunate in our AirBnB at Christmas. It was much less expensive than most that hold 14+ people in the area so I was worried that the photos were not showing how tiny it might be, but it was great. It was set up very well for a large group and we had a lot of fun. We had all five kids and five grandkids (plus the two in-laws, of course). Thanks to Jenny we had a skilled photographer grab shots of the full group for the first time since 2015.

The amazing hostess even brought in an electric piano for our use :)

It was a fairly short vacation, we only had Thursday and Friday off work. Many of the Family History missionaries take a week off every time we turn it around, it seems, and some of the medical ones, but that doesn't go over well where we work.  I did slip out Wednesday afternoon to do some Temple Square activities with Jenny's family.

Granddaughters at the church history museum, interesting things for all ages

The Family Search and Church History libraries have lots of fun activities and there's always our personal special tour guides at the Beehive House. (my sister Chris and hubby). Brunners got a huge family tree fan chart printed up.

Neanderthal Poetry is a pretty good game :)

a sample of the professional photos:

If you've made it this far in the random no-longer-chronological-order bits of our lives, here is a synopsis of the mission at this time:

We continue to do forwarding of phones for Infield reps taking a day off (They are on 24/7 pretty much so there has to be someone always covering their phones and email) and sending out a weekly reminder calendar about who is subbing - (it goes to the reception desk for the missionary department and the main operators as well as the IRFs and subs). We get notifications of missionaries who have been reinstated after going home for medical or other reasons and we work to coordinate their return. Often this is pretty simply but sometimes we either have to wait on hearing back when the dates work or we have to check on whether they can actually go straight to the country of their original assignment which can get complicated - tracking down the right visa agents and such. We answer phone calls from stake presidents, often to help them know how to request reinstatement or to deal with a family all worried about their son/daughter getting to their original assignment country or they've heard some rumor that everyone not vaccinated will get arrested or thrown out, etc. Sometimes we contact missions for updates on medical conditions to make sure they are resolved so the missionary can be on a list to travel to a country opening up or we help find out if a medication they have started is available where they might be going. 

We have been able to go to the Jordan River, Oquirrh Mountain, and Bountiful temples so far. 

We help with the swap meet for stuff missionaries leave for the next ones. 

Probably the most meaningful thing in many ways is just being in this unique mission with hundreds of senior missionaries. Today in a talk one spoke of how he feels giving the Sacrament prayer is the closest he will ever be to the Savior in this life. 

It's a bit like being an a meeting that is all stake presidents or temple workers except you get to be around them during socials and other gatherings, and we have started going down a floor to eat our lunch with those in the Senior Missionary department - they get the applications and do the medical checks and other things to help sort where the seniors will be able to serve. They don't make assignments or calls but do categorize them by what sorts of things the people can do and how much medical care needs to be available. Many people are able to use their experience from careers to be really useful and other learn something entirely new.

If you are into family history, this is a perfect place to be! You can work with family history all day and not have to worry about yardwork,  running cub scouts, whatever else.