Nina and I were married in New Haven, Connecticut on June 12, 1964, some 52 years ago. We “celebrated” our anniversary yesterday by having a very busy Sunday. The day included going to Church in the morning and serving at the Visitors’ Center in the afternoon with time to take a Very Short Nap in between. The absolute highlight of the day was a fireside at the Visitors’ Center featuring the BYU-Hawaii Choral. That group is leaving for a tour of Japan this week and were kind enough to provide an hour-long fireside as their last performance before getting on the airplane. Dr. Michael Belnap is the director / arranger and my goodness does he have a talent!

They closed the presentation with a stunning arrangement of “How Great Thou Art.” The choir was arranged around the feet of the Christus statue that we have in the rotunda with people crammed into every nook and cranny. The rotunda has magnificent acoustics which really complemented the choir. They ended with a very long standing ovation. This group will be a great representative of the University.

By the end of the day when we finally collapsed into bed we had had a record attendance day at the Visitors’ Center and we were both bone tired and needing to be up and moving by 5:30am this morning. So that’s how our 52nd year of marriage ended. 

Today is day one of the next year. It started with a training meeting at 7:30am this morning which consisted mainly of going on the Laie Tram Tour route in a tram and reviewing the dialog along the way. The purpose of the tram tour is to bring people to the Temple grounds and to the Visitors’ Center and expose them to the Church’s teachings and doctrine. The purpose of the dialog is to transition the tram guests from the holiday atmosphere at the Polynesian Cultural Center to the sacred nature of the Temple and the surrounding grounds. It is very helpful to get all the sister missionaries together from time to time to review the tour and the dialog and correct any bad practices.

After that meeting, I helped Elder Swinton, the Visitors’ Center Director, take the dead battery out of his car, get a replacement, and get that installed. One of the wire connections to the battery was corroded so badly that it just fell apart as we took it off the battery, so the installation required putting together a replacement capability … a lot of cutting, grinding, and splicing. It all worked out in the end.

We then had a great Skype call with our oldest son in Kentucky, a nice lunch, and back to the Visitors’ Center. Our day at the Center is coming to an end. The doors are closed and locked. Nina and I are sitting in the back waiting for the last of the sister missionaries to complete their work on the computers. They’ll wrap up in the next fifteen or twenty minutes and then we’ll be headed home. It has been another 900+ visitors day at the Visitors’ Center. While not a record, it’s still a very large number and included around 350 Chinese-speaking tourists coming on a dozen tour busses this afternoon. It’s been a good start to a new year!

Ta at for now!