Our cross country drive to Philadelphia began on Saturday, August 9th. It was a pleasant trip. We spent Sunday in Parachute, Colorado and attended a small ward there. They were meeting in a senior citizen center because their new chapel wasn't completed yet. They had just recently graduated from branch to ward. It was a great meeting and it was fun to talk to the missionaries. One was from Arizona and the other was from Minnesota. I love missionaries!
Tuesday morning we went to the St. Louis Temple. I went through for Xantippe Thomas, one of my ancestors I had found. What a blessing to do this work for them. I have other names if anyone wants someone to go for.
The St. Louis Temple
Driving past St. Louis, I couldn't resist getting a picture of the Arch. Brings back memories of our trip years ago when we went inside and up to the top. Makes my legs tingle thinking about it.
The drive to Pennsylvania was beautiful, so green with so many trees. I like the East - out in the country. We got to the north part of Philadelphia on Thursday morning, August 14th, and went to the mission office. President Anderson is from Hyrum. He and his wife are awesome!
We met the office missionaries, Elder and Sister Jones from St. George and Elder and Sister Wriggley from Smithfield. There are several missionaries from Cache Valley too. About an hour after we got there, another senior couple arrived - from Hyrum. Cache valley is well represented in the Philadelphia mission. Elder Jones feels way out numbered and lets everybody know. He's really a funny guy. I like him a lot. He took us to the consignment store that afternoon to pick our furniture for the apartment. It was tricky getting stuff without knowing what the apartment looked like.
We stayed in a motel in King of Prussia and went into Philadelphia the next morning.
Entering the great City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia:
This is our apartment building, One Franklin.
We are on the 7th floor. Our window is just left of the stop sign and tree, straight above the "white" (back side) of the other stop sign. Count up 6 windows. (Sorry the picture is cock-eyed.)
This is the entry to the building. There is desk inside like a hotel. There is an inside door that the person at the desk has to open, or we use our tab with our key to open it. Visitors have to check in there. When someone comes to see us, they call us and find out if it's okay to send them up. I really like the security. This is the place we catch our shuttle to go to the library. We were wondering how we were going to get there and were looking at bus routes, but found out this is a free shuttle that is part of our lease. It goes around the center of the city about every hour. It takes us to one block from the library. It picks us up here at 8:35, drops us off, then we catch it at 4:25 pm. and it brings us back. Cool.
Our apartment isn't very big, but it's nice.
Here's the kitchen.
We didn't know what the rooms were like when out picking furniture, but we got just the right size dining room set, and it's nice.
Our living room is larger than I expected, so we could have had more furniture, but this will do. I loved that big chair the moment I sat in it, so had to have it.
This is Jerrol's (Uh-hem) Elder Syme's work station.
I got my desk at Walmart. It's nice not to be at the kitchen table for a change.
Our bedroom, with a KING SIZE BED! Notice the little balcony. More about that in a minute.
We lucked out on a nice dresser.
This is Elder Jones who helped us pick out our furniture. He likes my chair too.
These are the awesome Elders who moved our furniture in. Love these guys!
Now for that balcony. This is the view! If you look close you can see the East steeple of the Temple. Right here is where we're going to be next July when they put the Angel Moroni on top!
And here's the night view.
This is looking Northwest.
The building just across from us is an retirement, assisted living highrise. The lighted part is their dining area.
This is a ground view of the Temple site from our side. The wall here is the visitor center. There is underground parking under the Temple for about 250 cars.
This is the picture from the web site showing how it looks now. Brother Carr is the Church's on site representative. He is a retired building contractor and was in charge of building the Las Vegas Temple. They came by on Saturday and visited with us. He said they are almost finished with the block work and will be started putting up the granite in about a week. It will be done in 2016.
And it will look like this.
What a blessing to be so near. We went to stake conference this weekend and it was all about missionary work and temple work. There are wonderful people here. Our ward is friendly and we're looking forward to getting to know everyone. We already have arranged to give a member who lives in the retirement home a ride to church each Sunday. He is a fascinating fellow. We will be attending a baptism next Sunday for a sister who's 8 year old grandson is also getting baptized. She and I have hit it off and she is excited for us to help her get started on her family history. The first counselor in the bishopric and his wife took us to dinner last Friday. We're starting to feel at home.
Next time I will explain about our work.
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