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Just after the first of the year we had one of the Piano Guys, the behind the scenes director, who is related to one of our missionaries, come and talk to us at the ROC.  He told us about how they got started in St. George and how they had progressed over the last few years.  I could have listened to him for hours, he was that good.  
 

Too bad I can't remember his name.

 

We had a luncheon afterwards and talked a bit.

 In February we had Samantha Sulser and Amanda Terry down for training and updating.
 

Samantha giving us what we need to know.

 

Amanda and Samantha with more training.

 Additioinally, the next day, they all toured the Tabernacle where we are hoping we will be able to set up a new ROC for about 30 to 40 more missionaries.

 

This is pretty much what the space looks like now.  we hope to be able to put computer desks and monitors in here for missionaries rto work at.  The space has been promised to us and Salt Lake is happy about the arrangement. 

 

This will be the open space just outside the ROC space.

 

While we were there, we got a tour of the main floor of the Tabernacle.  This is the pulpit end of the main hall.  The St. George Tabernacle has been around since the late 1800s and is a very historic building for both the church and the town.

 

Some of the details on the far wall, the "All Seeing Eye".  This building was erected about 2 years before the St. George temple in 1875.

 

They were putting in the wood flooring the day we visited.  A lot of noise.

 

A view from the pulpit end.

 

The details of the supports.

 

Last, but not least, the group pict. 
L to R, front: E/S Larsen, Sis Sulser, E/S Kerrin (the bosses)
L to R top:  E/S Payne, Sis Terry, E McReynolds, me.  Bro Contrell, the area Maintenance Super, was taking the pict.

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It has been a while and I am sorry about that.  The routine of each week seems to blend together and the weeks kind of have gotten away from me.  We have passed the one year mark and are into our last six months.  Out last day on our mission will be September 13th as we will be heading to off to see a grand daughter be baptized and then off to be released from our mission.  We are working on plans for our future but still not all that set in other than Jell-O yet.

We had a nice Christmas and were visited by Nathan, Tabbi, and the family.   They rented a nice townhome up the way a bit and we had Christmas up there.  More room than our apartment at the temple apartments. 

 

Tabbi, Nathan, and the munchkins

 

We all went over to Tuacahn and watched the Christmas presentation there.

 

Before the carnage...

 

The girls got a special present to keep them busy. 

 

Traditional christmas breakfast.

We had a great time together for a few days.  Then everyone had to go back to work and school again.  We were moving to our new apartment East of the temple apartments just after the 1st of January. 


 

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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. 

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The Christmas season has blossomed here in St George.  One of the 1st things to come around is the Jubilee of Trees.  We had several missionaries tell us about it as a "don't miss" event (among many) so we took the time to go visit it.  Only lasted a few days.  It is a display of all the Christmas trees you could possibly imagine in one place over at the St George Convention Center.  It was really something to see.

Trees of all sizes and shapes, decorated to the fullest extent and most of them, if not all, are for sale.  And the prices are not to be believed.  Not something I'd take home but unbelieveable.  Some of these went for thousands of dollars!  You buy the whole display when you buy it.

The area that had Christmas centerpieces had a lot of these candles that intrigued me.  These aren't candles.  The flame is a fragile center thing that kind of flops around with a bright lite in the middle that looks, for all intents and purposes, like a flame, but isn't.  Never seen one of these before.  They had a lot of these there.  They are really neat.  They would have lasted about 10 seconds in my house with my kids....

 

Santa's Mailroom.  Had to get that for Arlene.

 

They had a couple of model railroads there.  The scale of the downtown mainstreet was pretty well done.  Note the American flag on top of the building?  That was a digital sign that was flashing and changing.  That was pretty interesting.

 

...more trees...

 

Of course, Arlene always likes the purple trees.

 

They had an entire booth filled with small trees.  Some of these belonged to some relatives of those that work at the ROC with us.  Really nice stuff.

 

There was an entire booth filled with wreaths.  Some of them were even affordable.

 

This tree had an interesting theme.  It was all about lighthouses.

 

How could you not have a Harry Potter tree?  I couldn't get a good shot of this tree.  It was very popular and I could never get a clean shot of it.  Sorry.

 They had a big dining area in the middle and live entertainment the whole time we were there.  Lots of stuff to look at, eat and browse through.  We had a great time getting ready for Christmas.  Not even December yet!

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Catching up again.  We managed to wrangle tickets to run up to visit the open house for the new Cedar City Temple.  It is beautiful.  Oddly enough, the best time to get in and view it was Halloween night.  the other nights were all taken within an hour after the tickets were offered.  But, that was a good night to go.  Most of the children had other plans for that night.  They offered pictures of us against a backdrop of the temple so we jumped at that offer.

Not outside but who could resist the opportunity?

 Of course, pictures inside the temple are not allowed so any pictures I have are from outside.  But, it is magnificent inside the temple.  It is along the same format as the Nauvoo temple in width and height.  the basic footprint anyway.  It is about the same size.  A little bit smaller at 39,000 square feet.  the St George temple is considerably larger at over 100,000 square feet but this temple was not meant to replace the St George temple.  It's just to take some of the pressure off of the temple here in St George.  The temple here is going all the time.  I know that I always feel kind of odd that they seem to build temples in Idaho and Utah a lot and it makes members wonder why so many in Utah.  Well, the reason is that the temples in Utah/Idaho are just busier than you can possibly imagine. It's not like temples in other parts of the US where they have very few hours open due to very low attendance, hence, very short hours and few times during the day week.  In Utah they actually can't be open enough hours to satisfy the needs of patrons that attend there.  Until you have spent time in Utah, you really can't appreciate how many members actually attend sessions at their temples.  It's pretty impressive.

The tent to the left is the entrance to the temple.  The one in front here is where everyone comes out of the temple once they have completed the tour.  There were several tents for a short video prior to entering the temple for a brief overview of what temples are for and any questions.  The tents after the tour had the pictures after and displays of what went into the construction of the temple plus a small Christus statue you could take your picture  in front of.  I am guessing that will go somewhere in the garden area when everything is done and the temple is dedicated.

 

I think it gets prettier looking as the night comes on.  It'll look much better when all of the pre-dedication stuff is removed.  The tours ended just before Thanksgiving and the Dedication is scheduled for December 10th.  We have tickets to attend a remote dedication here in the St George East East Stake Center during that day.  When we can, we will be able to go up and attend a session.  the temple is in our mission so we can go.  It's about 45 minutes from here.  We don't know how busy it will be but I am betting it will be plenty busy until after Christmas.  Yes, we are planning on attending.  Half of the ordinance workers came from Cedar City but they have so many here in St George so that, apparently, is no problem for them.

 

The North side.

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It's been awhile.  Not a lot going on.  We have pretty much settled into a "grind" of regular work and a routine at the ROC so there isn't a lot to tell you about.  But, what the heck...

We've passed our 6 month mark here in St. George.  Actually, we are almost 7 months along our mission path.  About 11 months left.  We've had a lot of things to do and had to keep busy over the last couple of months.  One of our full time couples is preparing to head home so they are training me to take over when they leave.  The Elder stuff anyway.  Consequently, I'm getting more to do.  Keeps me busier than I have been in the past.  One of the other couples has extended till February then they are leaving.  They were supposed to leave in January.  Odd thing is, they have no replacements for either of these couples.  It appears that we might be heading towards having only two full time couples here at this ROC.  The Lead couple said they will be extending for a while as they may be transitioning to Church Service Missionaries.  So, the next few months ought to be pretty interesting.  But, we're here for 11 more months, I think...well, I'm pretty sure anyway.

We got to attend the "Newsies" musical over at the Tuacahn theater back in August, thanks to Sister Joines.  She's always taking care of us.  It was a lot of fun.  It wasn't quite the story of the DVD version as it had some variants and the music was different.  It actually had even more music but that was a good thing.  But, it had all of the good music we were used to and we got to kind of sing along with it. 

The set up for Newsies.  They did the musical all over the stage and up to about the 40 foot level.  It was pretty impressive. 

The intermission of the musical.  I believe Tuacahn will hold about 2,200 people.  It was packed that night, for the most part.  They are usually pretty well sold out.  This summer they had the Piano Guys perform there for a couple of nights but by they time I heard about it, there were no seats available except a couple of $90 nose bleeds.  Al Yankovic is coming next year but I think his seats will be sold out almost immediately as he is only doing one night.

Later in September we managed to get tickets to attend the Family Roots Tech Show here in St. George.  It was 2 days but one was Friday and we work on Friday mornings.  So, we opted to go Saturday only.  One speaker was John Bytheway on Saturday.   

He was really quite interesting to listen to and very funny.  Had a great time listening/watching him.

After the speakers, we attended classes that covered various subjects.  I attended 2 that covered RootsMagic, the PC/Mac related software application that is for genealogy.  It was interesting and I learned a lot about the software.  The VP of RootsMagic taught the class so it was pretty good and he knows his stuff.  There were even a few glitches during the class that he had to address and he was able to work around them.  Shows he knows his stuff.  Very interesting.

 A couple of weeks ago we went into the DMV and traded our Kalifornia license plates in for Utah plates.  We went over to the driver's license division, the next building over, and started the process for a drivers license for both of us.  Certainly is a lot more difficult to get one today than when I got one originally in 1965!   I had to drag out so much stuff to prove who I am now.  Thanks 9/11.  It took us a week to get all the paperwork together, study for the test, and return to take the test, eye exam, and pass it (I missed one in 25).  And I am thinking that is none too soon.  The RAV4's registration was going to be due in a couple of months so we saved well over $100 and the license is only $25.

So, where else but in Utah could you possibly make money on a store that sells ties?  Tie One On in the Red Cliffs Mall in St. George.  Bought 4 ties.  They have ties for everything, including Jerry Garcia ties that are not at Kohls!  This isn't all of the store, either.

We have a nice older gal that works in the ROC with us. She has an interesting calling due to her physical condition.  She's pretty crippled up with arthritis and has eye sight issues so working on a computer is difficult, at best.  But she's a trooper and works at it every day.  Her ward calling is a coordinator for blessings at the local hospital.  When they have a need for a Priesthood Blessing, she gets a call from the chaplain at the hospital, she then calls her husband who sets up the appointment as soon as he can get a couple of Elders there.  Because she's prit near deaf, we get to listen to these conversations.  

The other day, she couldn't get her husband to answer his cell phone.  The hospital described the patient, in the cancer ward, as "actively dying", whatever that means, never heard that one before, and he needed an immediate blessing.  So, I got elected to drop everything and head over to the hospital.  We have a 92 year old Elder serving with us and he said he could go.  We walk to the ROC so he would need to drive us.  He has a lot of experience with this kind of stuff, my experience is limited to, well, not much along this line.  He has been a stake president twice, a Bishop twice, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  So, when we got over there, I administered the oil and he administered the blessing.  The poor brother was in his last few hours of life.  He was not communicative in any form.  There are times in your life, when you give a blessing, that you really want to be able to talk to the person you're administering to.  This was one of them.  It wasn't meant to be.  This blessing was, however,  short, perfunctory, and efficient.  When you've given a lot of them, I guess you do that.  I looked at him and watched him struggling for breath and couldn't help but wonder what his life had been like.  His family had asked for the blessing.  His last blessing in this life.  No one was there to hear it but the two of us administering it and, well, maybe those from beyond the veil.  I assume he passed shortly after that.  Alone.  No one there with him.  Shouldn't be that way.  Really a shame.  My guess is this won't be the last time I do this.  She gets these calls sometimes twice a day.  Everyday.  Guess I need to get used to it.  25% of the population here in St George is over 75.  Maybe even more.  Makes one wonder when your time is going to happen....makes one thing about life a bit.

So, Halloween is right around the corner then Thanksgiving then, you know what!  Costco already has all the stuff up....argh!  More to come!