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We've been busy, it's that time of year.  This afternoon attended Handel's Messiah over at the Cox Auditorium at Dixie college.  It was really well done and there were a lot of people there.

 

Everyones getting settled in and getting ready to start.  It's a nice auditorium with plenty of seats.  We were about half way up in the center.

   

This is short but gives you an idea.  This was, unfortunately, spoiled by someone up in front of me moving around.  So, had to cut this off.  I have others but they are really long and too long to be uploaded for viewing.  At any rate, this was really a great show.

We're almost completely full in the afternoons.  This is one of our afternoon devotionals the other day.  There were still about another 10 missionaries in the wings filling up chairs in the "way back".  We have quite a crew of missionaries coming here every day.  All of them searching for those that have gone before.

You can always tell when christmas is here.  Found this at Wal-Mart.  Didn't last long.

 

We get to go to the Cedar City Temple dedication next Sunday (10th).  They are broadcasting here in St George and we get to participate in one of the three services.  Looking forward to it.  Obviously, we won't be going up there but it's OK.  that's for those that live up there.  The last one we were at was Sacramento in 2007 so it's been awhile.  

We have a Christmas party for the ROC this coming Friday, a few more Christmas things, then Nathan, Tabbi, and family are coming back to visit us for Christmas.  We are working on finding a place to live other than the apartments we've been living in.  We have a meeting scheduled next week to finalize the paperwork next Monday.  Plus, they have an open schedule so we have no need for us to be out of there at the end of our mission next September.  It's a pretty good deal for us.  More to come.  Hope you all are having a great Christmas season. 

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At the St George temple, the day after Thanksgiving, is the annual Christmas lighting ceremony.  Several organizations and, obviously, the church, get together and have some choirs sing, have a couple of speakers and then light all of the thousands of lights on the temple grounds.

Surprisingly, a lot of people show up for this annual event in St George.  All types of people.  This is only a very small portion of the crowd.

We couldn't get a good view of the speakers so had to walk around the backside to get close to them.  It was the typical St George evening.  Probably around 60 degrees.

 

There were seats there but we had to get there a lot earlier in order to get any of those.  Far more people than seats.  I guess this is a really big deal in St. George.

 

The Visitors' Center was open and all of the lights are on.  We clean here on Thursday nights.  They have lights all over the temple grounds.  Nothing spectacular but just pretty.  Just the outskirts of the temple grounds. 

  

One morning as I was walking between the buildings over at the ROC, I glanced over at the temple and saw this beautiful sunrise.  We get there pretty early and sometimes are treated to beautiful pictures painted for us before the day starts.  We have some very early starters at the ROC so I usually try to open things up for them.  We can now see the temple because most of the leaves from the trees have fallen.  Well, there are a few left but most are gone.  

 

With most of the leaves gone now, we can actually see the temple from our apartment door in the mornings as we walk over to the ROC.  We w=should be able to see it a td bit better in a couple of weeks when everything has fallen.  

 

I saw this in a custom brewed soda rack at an Albertson's store here in St George.  There are River City's in all parts of the US so I just had to check it out.  Yep, it was brewed in Sacramento, CA.  No, I didn't buy it as, well, I just didn't.  I'll get it next time we are in the store.  They have a lot of sodas in that store.   I'm not all that crazy about plunking down nearly $2 for a bottle of soda.  But it was good to see something from hometown, USA.