We went to Vista View Park which is just East of the temple site and went to the top of the hill to take pictures. I am pretty sure that the hill is a well settled landfill or what is affectionately called a ‘trash mountain.’ Whatever is under the ground the hill is probably 100 to 150 feet high which makes it perfect for taking pictures of the temple with a gated community in the foreground. Lots of water, trees and grass allowed for these great looking (he says modestly) of the temple.

  

  

After taking pictures at the park, we went down to the temple site and got shots of the beautiful detail of the windows on the steeple. The detail is amazing and should be even more beautiful when lighted from the inside at night.

This is the North side of the steeple with the window and Moroni against a darkening sky.

We have had some calls asking if Christmas packages shipped this coming week will get to the missionaries by Christmas day.

The basic answer is anything that arrives at the mission office by Friday the 21st will be hand delivered by the senior couples and the assistants by Monday. This means if you have not sent the packages for your missionary, you will need to send them via one of the express services offered by FedEx, UPS or USP. If the missionaries are close to the office packages delivered on Monday the 24th have a good chance of being delivered but it all depends on when the mail is delivered and who is available to get it out as most senior missionaries will already be out making deliveries.

Here is our post from 2011’s last minute Christmas delivery…it truly is one of the joys of serving a Senior mission.

Yesterday – the 23rd – 27 Christmas packages for missionaries came in to the office. The office couples decided that for part of our P-day we would play Santa’s Helpers and deliver them to the missionaries so they would have them on Christmas morning.

We took the Southern route with Hialeah, Homestead, Miami and Miami Beach zones because we had never been that far South before. Although even with a GPS we managed to get lost a couple of times and found out that you do not want to get in the express lanes on the freeway unless you want to go 5 or 6 miles out of your way, we had a wonderful time delivery our packages to the grateful missionaries along the way. Truly one of the joys of serving a Senior mission.