Angel Moroni

The temple spire is up.  It's time to put the Angel Moroni on.

Close up of the spire.

The statue was shipped in this crate from Salt Lake.

The cable is attached.

Three men were sent up in in a basket to set the Angel in properly.

 

        There is a hole in the spire, in which a rod will fit in just so.  Attached to the rod were two cables:  one was the lightning protection cable and the other was to secure the statue.  The cables are fed into the hole in the spire.  Someone was inside who could get the cables as they were lowered and then secured the statue from the inside.  The lightning cable is eventually taken all the way down into the ground.

A lightning spike will replace the cable after the statue is in place.

That was cool!  The Salt Lake office liked this picture.

Awesome!

President and Sister Anderson of the Fort Lauderdale Mission.

Our temple project missionaries, Elder and Sister DeGraffenreid from Kanosh, Utah.

               What a privilege it was to be able to witness the placing of the Angel Moroni on top of the temple.  There was some worry about an approaching hurricane.  In fact, the statue was placed on the temple a day early because of the impending storm.  It was originally scheduled for Thursday, October 25th, but instead was done on Wednesday.  Prayers were sent up so the weather would cooperate.  It was somewhat windy, but did calm down.  I love the picture of the clouds opening up right over the angel and the light shining through.  There was a little bit of work that needed to be done on the top of the spire so the Angel would fit on properly, but everything went very smoothly and it looks magnificent!

I love that the flight patterns for Fort Lauderdale airport fly directly over the temple!  And being close to the freeway, there are thousands and thousands of people who drive by every single day!  Wonderful things are happening here and lives are being touched!  It's difficult to express into words how blessed I feel that we are here doing this amazing work!  I couldn't ask for a better life than this.
              

Fun With the Missionaries

Our silly picture

Love this picture.  I've really enjoyed getting to know the senior missionaries and President and Sister Anderson.  We've enjoyed the dinners we've had at the mission home every second Monday.  Last week, President Anderson wanted pictures, so he set the camera and then ran back to sit next to his wife.  The first picture was straight with all of us smiling and then there was this one!  I liked this one best.  President and Sister Anderson are sitting in front of me.  Love it!

Making It Clear

Mark seems to think that everyone who reads my posts will think that all we do here in Florida is play.  So, I'm making it clear that these are the highlights of our stay here.  It's NOT what we do everyday.  We really do work most of the time.

Okay.  I hope that's cleared up now.

Epcot

Friday, July 27th, Mark and I went to Orlando.  We went first to the temple-he to help with baptisms for the dead for another ward and me to do an endowment session.

I was so grateful for this opportunity because when we were there a couple of weeks ago, my mind had been so preoccupied I wasn't paying attention and felt badly about that.  This was an opportunity to make up for that time.  It was a good experience.

We had decided that since we were coming to the temple that we would stay over and go to Epcot.  We were actually able to spend the evening there after going to our motel and changing.

It's been about 25 years since we've been there.  Naturally it's changed a lot!  So being there was like going for the first time.  There are actually two parts to Epcot.  The first is where that gi-normous golf-ball looking thing is.  It's all about innovations and progress, taking care of the earth and stuff like that.  It was neat and we enjoyed it.  That's where we spent most of our time.

The second part takes you through 11 or 12 different countries.  The buildings and areas around are built to look authentic to that part of the world.  Each person who works there is actually from the country.  Mark found out that Disney contracts with each individual to come over for a year.  Most spoke very good English.

Naturally there are gift shops at each place.  There are also restaurants or cafe's.  Most places have some kind of special presentation or ride that depicts that country.

Friday night we got over to see Canada.  There was a surround-view movie with Martin Short showing the beauties of Canada.  It's one of those that makes you feel that you're right there and it can make  you a bit queasy.  But it was enjoyable and very beautiful.

We stayed and watched the fireworks showing over the lake.  They were timed to music and  were amazing!

Saturday, we planned to spend the day going through all of the countries, but they didn't open until 11:00 so we went back to do some of the things we had missed the evening before.

Someone had told Mark we could get a passport and get it stamped at each of the countries so we bought one.  We thought that would be fun.  Like I said, the architecture is amazing and I loved learning about each of the countries.

With Donald in Mexico!

We had lunch in Norway-a sandwich with ham,cheese and apples, a combination I hadn't really thought of, but very good.  I enjoyed learning a bit about the Vikings and the Troll ride.

In Italy we each had a piece of chocolate with hazelnuts-delicious!

The fountain in Italy

Italian ears!

In China

Japan looking over the lake

 There was an amazing drummer group in Japan, two women and a man.  Wow!  What a workout!  We had a refreshing shaved ice in Japan.  I wish I could remember the name for it.  It hit the spot cause it was hot!

We enjoyed a beautiful a'cappella group in the United States and a wonderful, amazing production about America.  I felt so proud to be an American!

France

Mark next to the famous Spitting Gargoyle of Notre Dame.  Love this picture!

France

 I would have loved having an old fashioned English tea (herbal of course) with crumpets, cucumber sandwiches or biscuits (cookies), but we were running out of time.  Another time perhaps.  There was a band playing oldies from British bands from the 70's and 80's.

Had to take a picture with Tigger and Winnie the Pooh in England.  We're just big kids!

I got all of my countries stamped.  It was fun talking to the young people who are here for a year.  I also got a huge woven bag in one of the Moroccan bazaars.  Love it.

The last thing we did before heading home was to ride the mono rail to the Magic Kingdom and back again. We'll be able to park-hop the next time we come.

Long drive home, but what a fun weekend!

Temple Progress

View from the roof.  Imagine how many will see this beautiful temple every single day!

Elder DeGraffenreid

I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago.  More has been done since then.  It's so exciting to me to see the progress that is being made on the temple!  Mark took me around.  The panels are beautiful and the designs that have been stamped into them are unique.  I know Mark is proud of what's happening.  It's in his voice as he explains everything to me.  I know it pleases him when I express my enthusiasm and compliments. 

I even went up onto the roof. (there were stairs)  The view is amazing!  The temple is situated in a wonderfully strategic place close to the freeway.  It will be seen by millions of people who drive by.  It will be a beautiful landmark when it's done.

When the members here talk about the temple (and they talk about it often), I feel so blessed that Mark and I are here to help make that possible for them.  What a blessed life!

It's Not a Lizard!

I had never seen the lizard that lives in our light; well, I take that back.  I thought the lizard I had seen sunning itself on our stairs was living in our light.  But Mark saw it just outside of the light one day and said how weird looking it was.  He described it to me.  After he left for work, I went on a web site for animals in South Florida.

What we have living in our light is a gecco!  He's been hard to see, but I finally got a close-up of him a couple of times.  This is what he looks like.

It is typical of geccos to live close to homes.  He likes the light because when it's on at night, it attracts insects.  He's usually out first thing in the morning.  That's when I got these pictures.  He usually runs back inside the light when we come outside.  I was lucky to get these, because he's so fast!

A Day at the Beach

Mark usually does not love gong the beach.  I think it's mainly because he gets burned.  But a while back we went to the beach to say goodbye to some friends who were leaving.  Many of those who were there had umbrellas and were blissfully sitting under them visiting and snacking and just enjoying themselves away from the blistering heat of the sun.

Mark thought we could do that too.  He bought a couple of beach umbrellas at Walmart and on Saturday, June 30th, we packed up our beach gear, stopped at Publix for some snacks and went to Fort Lauderdale Beach.

It was a beautiful day.  The beach was pretty packed, although coming earlier as we did, (a little after 1100) we found some good parking. After we got there the parking lot filled up pretty quickly.

We stayed for four hours.  We enjoyed people watching, I read, we ate our snacks and enjoyed the water.

Even though there aren't really breakers like there is on the Pacific side, there are still waves that move toward shore.  I found it interesting that we could wade quite a ways out before it got deep where I had trouble touching bottom.  Once we were out there we could feel the ocean surges.  It is a living, heaving mass!

I loved being there.

I had chosen not to wear sunscreen.  It wasn't until we got home and showered and changed that I realized how burnt I was.  We had sat under our umbrella, but out in the water, the sun reflected off of the surface and burnt my chest and face.  Because I wore my I sunglasses I had racoon eyes!

We had been invited to a dinner party that night.  I tried to camouflage my burnt face with make-up, but after I got home, I realized how pointless it had been.  I still looked like a racoon!  How funny!

So, live and learn.  I'll be more careful next time. The interesting thing is Mark got burnt too and we were really careful to apply sunscreen to him.  The funny thing with Mark is his forearms are so brown from working outside every day at the job site.  If the rest of him got as brown as his arms, people might think he was of a different race (and who knows, maybe he is somewhere back in his genealogical line).

All in all it was a wonderful day!