Temple Square Delivery

So, as I mentioned in the previous post, we went to Temple Square last night to meet a family from Guatemala that is in Joseph's ward. He goes over to their house for lunch every Thursday! And they'll be seeing him again this Thursday. This is probably as close to him as we'll get until June 2020. They have been here for two weeks - flew into Arizona, went to Vegas for a bit, and they came to Utah on Saturday. They went to Music and the Spoken Word yesterday morning and then to the First Presidency Devotional last night. They are headed back Arizona to leave for Guatemala on Tuesday, so this was our only chance to meet up. It was a a bit of a process for all of us to go, but I really wanted us all to go. "If you want to show Joseph you love him, get ready and get in the car!" This could be a once in a mission opportunity! It was snowy on the drive in, a drive I would not have taken a week ago, hooray for the van's new tires. We all bundled up pretty well. Walking through City Creek - 

Here we are at Temple Square, to the day - 20 year later. What do you think little man? He pointed at the red lights and said "Bad Guy" The kids say "Bad guy" so often to Daniel to get him to be afraid of something or so that he'll let them hold him, I think he's officially confused as to what "bad guy" means. 

The closest place for warmth refuge was the South Visitors Center. We went in and looked at things about the construction of the Salt Lake Temple.

Look at these two cuties holding hands. Sophi and Owen, warms my heart.

We looked at things about the temple quarry - that's where we live! That temple behind you came from our canyon, pretty neat.

Corey talked to the kids as they looked in the small model replica of the temple.

That model is pretty neat, I bet that was a lot of work but also totally fun to build for whoever got lucky enough to be assigned that project.

Mel and I looked at it and see an amazing doll house all perfect with lighted chandeliers and cute little chairs. The little kids liked the touch screen things that taught about temples. Sophi and Natalie learning about the place where "Mom and Dad got married".

Daniel found a touch screen at his level. It had lots of pictures of temples. Daniel looked at it and excitedly almost shouted "Temple! Temple! Temple!" as he pointed to each one.

I tried to listen to the devotional on my phone, but didn't catch much - mostly we were just keeping track of toddlers. We'll have to listen to it later. The kids liked the displays teaching the basics on families and Heavenly Father's plan of salvation.

Once we were sufficiently warmed up, we went outside and headed up to the North Visitor's Center. We waited in line to go see the Christus statue. Daniel got distracted by the escalator, it reminded me of being in the Florida airport with little Natalie years ago. Glad it wasn't me chasing the toddler around this time. Wesley and Mel watched Daniel as they rode up and down while we waited for our turn to to see the statue.

When we got up to the statue, Daniel wasn't done running around. Abi chased him for us.

Thanks Abi! (We're getting too old for this!!)

A picture in front of the statue -

As soon as the Christmas devotional ended, I texted our Guatemala contact. We went back and forth a few times. I told him "I'm wearing a yellow coat, surrounded by lots of kids!" He texted back a photo of himself. I tried to take a selfie, and a nice passerby asked "Would you like me to take your picture?" So nice. So we got a family picture the temple. This picture will probably be on the back cover of this years blog book.

Thank you, nice lady. And then we waited some more.

It seemed like everyone was out of the conference center now, just a few stragglers left. The toddlers played in the snow, we didn't lose anyone. I headed inside now and then with Daniel for a quick warm up. Corey moved to the gate outside. He decided to call and see where they were. Then we finally saw a guy in a black hat, coming towards the temple grounds, talking on a phone, that was our man! We all went inside the visitors center. As we talked, Corey met another friend from Chile, Ivan, in the green coat, who helped us get the kids into school there. Small world. 

Ivan took a group photo for us

We fell in love with them instantly. The mom Heidy is so cute.

We've wanted for Ethan to be able to do an international trip solo like Joseph did to Chile, which Joseph said was a good mission prep for him, to take off the initial shock that comes to missionaries from being on their own. Somehow it came up and they said Ethan can come to stay with them next summer. That should be okay since Joseph won't still be in their ward then, I'm sure. Eth said he's game, so we're going to explore that possibility! All the kids gave Elvis a hug so he can pass it on to Joseph in a few days

Super great family, we love them already! They said Joseph is an amazing missionary and that things have really come alive in their ward since he arrived.

We waited for a bit while their son ran to the car to get the package. 

We had a fun visit, it felt like my tongue was loose and I could speak Spanish again! It was fun. This was the hard boring part for the kids though - a bunch of adults gabbing on and on and they didn't know what the heck anyone was saying.

Their son got back with the package from our cute Joseph with letters and some Chiky cookies, it was nice to see his handwriting. We gave them our package for Joseph with letters too. We finally stopped so that we could try to get Ethan back for a mission prep class that evening. Heading back to City Creek parking. 

I'm glad Corey knows where he's going, I was lost.

Ethan ended up not going to mission prep, not sure if it's cause it was too late. But so we headed home and opened our early Christmas present -

A note to the family -

Writing on the cookie wrapper. 

Everyone enjoying the cookies and reading their letters -

The cookies were a hit.

The letters were an even bigger hit. Joseph even wrote letters to Daniel and Owen.

Corey said "It takes a long time to write letter! Joseph wrote more letters here than I did my entire mission! He must really love you guys!"

We love him and sure miss him. We are excited to be able to talk to him in 22 days!