We took E/S Ellis out for a couple of hours to show them how to get to a couple of places that they will be going to over the next few days. After showing them the Mission Home and the Plantation Stake Center we went to the Pines chapel where they will go most Sundays. On the way back we stopped by the temple site so they could see the how it was going and so they could meet brother Mark Barry. A great bonus was a picture of Mark smiling…something I have not been able to do for the last year as he tends to be camera shy. We have a lot of fun kidding each other about my attempts to get him to talk about when the temple will be finished and my taking and posting pictures of the progress. I told him was going to train elder Ellis to take my place as an annoyance after I leave.

  

As you can see by the pictures they are busy moving dirt around as the sculpt the landscape. They have run a lot of the conduit for outside power. We did not see it but brother Barry said they have started to layout the main parking lot. E/S Ellis will be here for the open house and the dedication!

  

  

Thursday night we welcomed elder and sister Ellis who drove in from the MTC. They are from Idaho Falls and have served two prior missions. The first was to Bulgaria for 23 months and the other was a Temple Square mission for 13 months. They will be serving as the Family History missionaries for the whole mission. They came in on Friday to get acquainted with the office and spent some time with elder Bare getting their Tiwi and gas card as well as a Sunpass for their car so they can travel the turnpikes as the go throughout the mission encouraging family history and temple work.

  

Sisters Holyan and Dougal came into the office to pick up some supplies and chapel cards. They serve the Nova YSA branch and are doing a wonderful job at building it up. In the middle picture they are looking for the chapel cards behind sister Ellis. Earlier sisters Bean and Lake came in to get supplies and had some questions for elder Bare. Now that he has both bikes and vehicles to worry about elder Bare is probably the busiest of the senior elders but elder Collins, the housing co-ordinater is close behind as he and his wife need to find homes for all the new missionaries who will be coming in over the next two transfers.

  

Sister Stegelemeier came in to see elder Bare – she actually came in their car and not on the scooter she is trying out. As we were talking she mentioned that she had a mission blog. I was surprised because I try to keep up with which missionaries have blogs. A quick look at her blog made me realize that families who have missionaries serving here would enjoy reading her letters home so I added her blog to my blog list. The assistants were in much of the day working on their planning and checking in with missionaries. They spend a lot of time on their phones talking to or texting other missionaries. At about 4:00 they were done and could leave to do ‘real’ missionary work in their area. The gardeners trimmed the hibiscus tree outside our door but they managed to leave one bud untouched that bloomed into this gorgeous flower. We will miss all the beautiful flowers that are available here year round.