Early Spring

Things are slowly waking up.  Last week several new site missionaries arrived.  Now, all the missionaries currently assigned to be here along with a few local members can pretty much fill the west theatre at the visitor’s center (as we pretty much did last night).  There we had a sociable where we got to see the film “Ephraim’s Rescue”, followed and preceded by some words by one of the actors that was seen in that film.  Afterwards he entertained some questions including one about how they filmed the scene with the rattle snake.  He explained that after it was learned that a snake can be – defanged – at least until they grow back in a few days (weeks?) later, they had their fun trying to shoot that scene.  Although we only get to see a few minutes of what took place in the film, he claimed it took over five hours to shoot that scene. 

Things continue to get a bit warmer – from time to time.  We still see sub-freezing weather almost every night, we also get to see the temperature climb modestly into the fifties on a frequent basis.  Today, it may have even hit the sixties!  Except for the magnolia trees that are about, we haven’t seen many buds on any of the trees yet.  The branches are still void of all leaves and the birds have few places to hide.  Oh well, I guess this is early spring.  It gives a different view of what it must have been like when Joseph enter the grove of trees “early in the spring” of 1820.  I usually don’t imagine it as being as I see the groves around here: bare and lifeless – but I suppose that that may have been the way it was.

We enjoyed the women’s conference Saturday night and look forward to the General Conference sessions that will transpire next week-end.  Almost a year ago, shortly after conference, we left to come on this mission.  As we drove across the plains, we listened anew to several of the conference sessions that we had down-loaded for that purpose.  I suppose, for Becky, it wasn’t really “anew” but rather for the first time, since she missed the conference being en route on her trip to Taiwan last year.  This year promises to be a much more relaxed occasion. 

The elder and sister that has been providing us with so many wonderful pictures over the last year is due to be released and to go home in another couple of weeks.  We will miss his daily images sent to us showing so many beautiful aspects of this area.  We will need to find another to do the same.  Or maybe we will need to break out our camera and actually get a few pictures with us in it to prove that we have been here.  But our camera is not the greatest – perhaps we will wait until summer when many of our children plan to come here for a reunion.  I hope they bring their cameras with them.