Brigham City Utah Temple

After we completed everything for our New Zealand Visa applications in January we learned that the government of New Zealand changed the requirements for the type of Visa that missionaries will use. Church lawyers recently completed negotiating new requirements and we completed again our medical forms and applications. They have been submitted to the New Zealand government. We are expecting approval in a few weeks.  We are currently scheduled to report to the Mission Training Center on July 16, and we will fly to New Zealand the following week. 

In the meantime, we have been doing a very wonderful thing.  Our son Tyler has a company that creates and installs decorative finishes (iconographyfinishes.com/). He told us he could use our help if we wanted to come to Brigham City Utah and work on a large design project in the new temple. We decided that while we waited we would do that. The company rented a home here and we have the premier bedroom spot. There are about 8 workers that are staying here during the work week.

This is our first day on the job. The smile was off my face after climbing the 3 flights of stairs. We are really out of shape. After these 8 weeks we are getting stronger. The one of the first days we were here Tyler asked me to go and put some vinyl on one ceilings. It was at least 30 feet up and there was only an electronic lift. Having recently heard of a good friend that was killed in one of those, I was very afraid. I had one of the crew teaching me how to use it. I had a panic attack and just gave up.
 I am happy to report that I used the scissor lift and laid on my back to install vinyl on the ceiling a few days ago. Keep in mind that was inches from the ceiling. I overcame my fear of that. My other option was a scaffold that I needed to climb which I did and overcame the sway that is inevitable that high up.

Even though it is spring here this is Utah and we had snow in our flowers. We are really enjoying the flowers, they are everywhere and new ones pop out every week.
The back yard is just a fairy land with all the flower beds and "attractions" like a pond and a ceramic mermaid, turtles and stepping stones.

 This beautiful white wisteria was right outside the kitchen door and we saw it transform into this gorgeous thing. I had not see white wisteria before, always purple and it was glorious.

There is a website that shows some more pictures of the temple outside. mormontemples.org/brighamcity

 Later I think they will have more of the inside.The public is invited to visit the new temple during an open house from Saturday August 18, 2012 until Saturday September 15, 2012 excluding Sundays. Free tickets will be available beginning on July 30, 2012 at BrighamCityMormonTemple.org

The grandchildren came up break for a few days during the week of spring break.  We had a good time walking around town with Oliver and Emmaline.

 Ollie with his "favorite flower". Who knew that an eight year old would know anything about a bleeding heart?? Well there you go.

A wonderful old building at the end of our road. 

Love that beehive and the bees!

 Emmaline is up on the stairs but you can barely see her.

Nice pose from Ollie though

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Brigham City Tabernacle across the street from the temple.

This is how an artist goes to work.

 This is us as we went to work on Saturday, not a normal work day for us. There was only one other worker and us. It was a quiet day.  There was a ceiling that needed peach blossoms installed and we were racing the carpet layers. It was a complicated design and we are basically slow. I took us almost 14 hours. Working above our heads most of the time. We got the scaffolds taken down put away, another first, and come out very tired and sore. We are very glad for this Sabbath day and a rest. We are glad for this Monday being a holiday and one more day of not working. We are anxious for the "gold Guy" to come in and start getting his part done and see if we did ours right. Hope so!

We have going to the local ward here. The house we are in belongs to the Bishop's dad. The missionaries assigned here spoke today and did a great job.The sister is assigned to write the history of this temple and he is helping with the overseeing construction.

This is the bishop's family collection of the most fabulous rocks and fossils. They have a whole building dedicated to their rocks.

 I believe poppies are my new favorite flower!!
They are all over here and in a variety of colors, this one is in the neighbor's yard and we are loving seeing them.

So that is what we have been up to lately. We really think the new date of July 16th will be the day we start our mission, until then we are very happy doing this!