Today turned out to be a pretty full Preparation Day! The street in front of our house is being re-paved and this morning the machinery came to mill the old asphalt. That meant putting our car over at the Temple parking lot otherwise it would be hemmed in until they were finished. That turned out to be a non-issue. By noon they were finished milling, moved everything away, and didn’t come back. I’ve no idea when they’ll actually put the new asphalt down on our road!
The house cleaning, laundry, and shirt ironing were all pretty much underway by noon, so we decided to do something unusual … go out to lunch! We drove over to Subway, had a nice sandwich followed by some ice cream at Angels Ice Cream Store, and came back home to finish things up.
As I was finishing the ironing, a couple of sister missionaries called and asked if we wanted to go out for Thai food for dinner with them (translation: take them to Thai food for dinner). Sure. We didn’t have anything pressing (note the pun) so we picked them up and drove west to Sunset Beach and the Elephant Truck Thai Food establishment for some excellent Thai food. That made two meals out in the same day. We haven’t done that since we got here.
The sun was setting as we ate, so we stopped by Sunset Beach to take a few pictures. I parked on the pavement particularly, since the young missionaries aren’t allowed on the beach (“Your mission ends where the sand starts!”). We had a lot of fun and a great conversation on the way back home about a conference talk “Is It Still Wonderful to You?“. This has reference to the gospel and Church being “a marvelous work and a wonder” and whether or not we have become so complacent in our lives that it has ceased to be a “wonder”.
One of the sister missionaries is from Cambodia. She’s a real dynamo and an outstanding missionary (they all are, some more than others, though). She talked about how the Temple was so very far away from her and the other members in Cambodia (the closest temple is in Hong Kong). Since she couldn’t get to the temple, or even to the grounds around the temple, she put up a large picture of the Salt Lake Temple in her room so that she could have the feeling of being close to the Temple. Kind of made me tear up a little bit. They in Cambodia are so excited for the new temple to be built in Bangkok … it’s only a twelve-hour bus ride for them! So, a new goal: keep it wonderful.
Life is blessed.