Trip to Utah

Monday evening, March 3, we were officially set apart as Missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  We were given wonderful blessings to help us in this work.  We left for Utah Tuesday about noon.  Thank you to our granddaughter, Faith, and to Geneva for letting us crash with them.

We headed for Las Vegas.  We got to the temple in the late afternoon.  It was beautiful.

The parking lot was full.  We were surprised that the temple would be so crowded on a Tuesday afternoon.  We found out that there were four people going to the temple for the first time, hence the crowds.  By the time we got out, the temple was lit up.

We left Vegas and headed for St. George.  With the time change, we got there about 11:30 at night.  We were very tired and went right to sleep.  

We left at 9:00 AM Wednesday morning to attend the St. George temple.  It was the first temple built out west after the Saints left Nauvoo.

Our temple session had about 150 people in it.  Again, we were surprised that so many people would be at the temple on a Wednesday morning.  One of the temple workers said it was always busy like that.  It is a very beautiful temple.  

We had lunch with some old friends.  As you can see, Craig easily overpowered Matt in arm wrestling.

We left St. George and headed up highway 89 to the Manti Temple.  This was my favorite temple.  I couldn't believe how beautiful it was!!!  And all built without the help of any electrical tools.  All the stone hauled with wagons and horses and carved with hand tools.  It was breathtaking inside and out.

As we were leaving Manti, you can see it was very dark.  The temple glows from the lighting and can be seen from miles away.  They told us at the temple, to be careful of the deer.  Sure enough, we hadn't gone 5 miles before I saw a deer on the side of the road.  They can do a lot of damage to your car if you hit one.  I was nervous driving on the two lane road, but made it to Allison's house in Draper, Utah by 10:00.  

It has been nice to relax and take it easy today (Thursday).  We went to the thrift store and got Craig a nice rain/trench coat, me a nice heavy winter coat, and miscellaneous other necessities.  We are going to try to get to the Salt Lake Temple in the morning.  It's supposed to snow tonight, so we'll see.