The Fourth of July 2013

Thursday, July 04, 2013

           Glade is doing the post tonight, but I wanted to recognize the fact that it is a holiday and we missed the traditional celebration with family.  There is nothing that brings your patriotism to the forefront like being out of the country and away from the peace and freedom that blesses our lives.  Even as bad as things are on several fronts right now, it is better than any other place I can think of. 

GP__We celebrated Independence Day with pancakes for breakfast.  No, not at I-Hop; but I hopped and Mom hopped around our usual route. 

Before Mom made it outside to join me this morning, I talked to Alex, the guard at the little house construction I’ve told you about.  He is the one I gave the Book of Mormon to and a referral to the full time Elders.  The Elders contacted him and have given him the first lesson.  He is scheduled for another lesson and is reading the Book of Mormon. 

The house is being built for around $1000.  Hmm . . .  It’s really close to the temple, lots of dental work needed here.  Corey and Kristie, are you still looking {:  ?

          Our real celebration was taking care of lots of temple work for lots of people today.  Buses from Northern Honduras and from Nicaragua brought lots of patrons. 

This was taken about 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday while we were walking.  If you look closely, you can see the groom on the right-hand side of the bride.  Yesterday, there was another bride and groom outside for pictures, but they had to huddle near the front door where they were protected from the rain that was coming down hard.  I felt bad for them.  The grounds are so beautiful and make a wonderful background for pictures.  Maybe they will come back another day--
or just remember that it rained on their wedding day.

This is the back side of the brick house that Alex guards.  You can just see a couple of rows of bricks above the concrete fence on the temple grounds.  Alex had gone home and two workman replaced him and went right to work.

This is the street side of the house and, as you can see, construction is moving right along.

This is looking through the front door into the interior walls of the house.
I am wonderfing if they make provision for electrical wiring and plumbing.

This is the guard station (on the left) at the West entrance to the temple grounds.

A young man is guiding the bus driver as he backs into the parking space between the other two busses about 7:30 a.m.

These beautiful young girls were happy to pose for a picture for me early this morning.  

From the bus above poured these young people who had come to do baptisms for the dead.  

More of the same group.  All of their work in the baptistry kept the washers and dryers just a-hummin' all day.

This "bug" was parked next to the temple this morning and looks a lot better in this picture than it did in "real life"!  It's really old and pretty beat-up--but obviously still running.

Here is another old car that made me smile with the big "pop-up" headlights.