Hola todos!
Wow, okay I need one second for my brain to warm up and for my thoughts to come together. This week has been soooo great, and yet extremely exhausting! We were able to work at the temple open house for the first time last Friday. How can I really even describe this experience in an email? Well last Friday was just such a magnificent day. It was the 6th of April, so the 182nd anniversary of the organization of the church and also Jesus Christ's birthday. My companion and I are working at the reception area that is located at the end of the temple open house tour(this is a fancy way to say "the room with the cookies") when we get the news the President Keyes is bringing the great grandson of Joseph Smith through the open house and they will be arriving in the reception area shortly. Well sure enough, just a few short minutes later President Keyes and his dear wife walk through the door with a man who has the nose of the Prophet Joseph. As President brings him(and his wife too, she was such sweetheart) over to meet us, overhead there is music playing and you will not even believe what song the Mormon Tabernacle choir was beautifully belting. Joseph Smith's First Prayer! But wait! It gets even better! President Keyes is actually working with him(his name is Dan Larson) and his wife, teaching them the gospel. Most of Dan's family is part of the RLDS church, or some break off of the church and for a long time Dan was himself. Keep in mind that Dan is over 70 years old. Anyway, as I shook his hand and was introduced by my mission president I could not help but think about the Prophet Joseph and how happy he must be that his direct descendant is coming back. Dan is actually very close to baptism! He and his wife LOVED the temple. Is this not so very significant? We finally have a temple dedicated so very close to the land that Joseph consecrated as land for the temple, for Zion, and at this very same time one of his posterity is coming back into the fold of God! There were only six of us sisters that actually got to meet Dan and his wife, so I am so thank for this opportunity.
So just an update on Kathy, our investigator with a baptismal date. She is still loving the Book of Mormon. She is currently almost done reading in Jacob. She is also going to be attending the temple open house with one of her friends who is a member. We are working at the temple open house three days a week, so for the next few weeks we are not going to have much time in our area which is a bit difficult, but I know the Lord will bless us and the people that we teach.
On Tuesday we worked at the temple house again, this time there was a TON of people! On Friday when we had worked, it was the VIP tour so there was not too many people, but on Tuesday it was crazy! For the first part of our shift I was presetting the movie that the people watch before they go on the actual tour. So I introduce myself, give some information about the tour and then turn the time over to the tour guide. The thing is that I was in charge of two rooms and there was a total of six rooms. We had to make sure that there was never a time when two rooms were coming out at exactly the same time to walk over to the temple(these rooms are in the chapel that is located right next to the temple) because it would cause a traffic jam and chaos would then ensue. So I was given two stop watches. I would start one right as one movie was starting so that we would know how much more time we had until those people are ready to come out and head to the temple. Then I would go over and preset the other movie and start that clock watch. The movie is 12 minutes long. Anyway it was pretty crazy, but the cool thing was that if you were an outsider looking in you probably never would have known how crazy it really was. The church REALLY is good at crowd control. We had at least five hundred people going through there and hour if not more.
Due to our getting up at insane hours(5:15, hey its feels SO much earlier than our normal 6:30) in order to work at the temple open house, plus having all of our normal responsibilities, I have to say that I am spent. I have never known this kind of exhaustion in my entire life! While at the temple we are answering questions constantly. You would be shocked at the number of non-members that we have come to the open house! A lot of them belong the the Community of Christ church(formerly the RLDS church). I have to tell one last story because it meant so much to me. Well I said that we are constantly being asked questions at the open house. On Tuesday I had this big group of people come into the reception area right after going on their temple tour. Now before the tour starts the tour guides tell their group that they have to hold their questions until the end because there is always a group coming right after them so they cannot pause to answer questions while inside the temple. The place that comes right after the tour is where we are. Is is FANTASTIC!!! I love it when these people have so many questions for us. Well like I said a big group came over to me, I would say there was about twenty people in this group. They had all come together and they were baptists and catholics. They all started firing questions at me(I bet it looked pretty funny too because they literally encircled me) and I prayed that I could answer with the Spirit and then answered them. This one lady just had this sour look an her face and she kept asking these questions with this tone like "Well how do you explain this young lady!". I kept my cool and after I had finished answering someone else's question where I had mentioned that the temple is the House of the Lord she then said "Well if you worship in a chapel on Sundays but you say that the temple is the House of the Lord, is the Lord not there when you worship on Sundays?". At this point I think she thought she had caught me in a lie or something, she just was acting a bit haughty. I prayed for inspiration as to what to tell her and then the Spirit spoke through me. I said "Just like in the Old Testament in the times of King Soloman we have temples that are sacred and holy places, Houses of the Lord. You could compare our chapel to the synagogues of old where all people could go to worship and where the Spirit of the Lord resided." Well she looked at me and her face got a lot softer and she said "Oh, okay, thank you". I answered a few more of their questions and then they thanked me and went to go finish eating their cookies. Okay these were NOT my words. I have never spoken of "synagogues in times of old". I feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that the Lord allowed me to be His mouthpiece for these people. As they were leaving most of them even told me that they would fill out a comment card too and that they had really been impressed by the temple and our members. The Lord's blessings never cease to amaze me.
Well I am about out of time. I just want to let you all know that I love you and that I pray very fervently for your well being. Remember to do the small and simple things and you will see great things come to pass.
con amor,
Hermana Thorne
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