Summary news

Sorry it has taken us so long to get a letter out to you. We were told we would have internet. It would have been more accurate to say we could get internet, but because we are living in housing provided by the church, the accounts are set up through one person. Verizon, the provider, will only talk to that person whose main job is to be gone. He does the computer work for the church in all of the 27 countries served by this temple district and is next to impossible to reach. Other Senior Missionaries tell us that it was quick for us to get our internet in only three weeks. We were not counting waiting three weeks a blessing. We are enjoying our work in the temple. The temple itself is beautiful, as they all are. It is considered a big temple and has the same floor plan as the Boston, Preston, and St. Lewis temples with two, two part endowment rooms. This temple has an assembly room also. President Hinckley said he didn't know why this temple needed one, but it did. Sometimes the sessions are very small. I was on one which had three people, the witnesses and myself. They never exactly cancel a session although they will post pone one if there are only a couple of patrons at the starting time to see if more come in. We have been grateful for the Spanish class we took this summer. President Peterson, the temple president, has said we are ahead of schedule. I think we are able to learn the ordinances so fast because we have a fair grasp on the language and then both of us were blessed in our setting apart blessings with the ability to learn the language. Don served as the officiator for the first time today. He was nervous and it showed slightly, but he did very well. He has worked in every other ordinance and position in the temple except sealings. They seem to have a lot of sealers so we do not know if he will eventually be set apart as a sealer or not. I spend the bulk of my time being a participante (patron) in initiatory and on sessions but I have been an obera (worker) in initiatory and a sigadora (follower) on a session. I have had the new name ordinance memorized in Spanish since the MTC but I have never been asked to do it. I have the first two booths memorized in initiatory and will have the third memorized before today is over but I will continue to read it as I perform it for a while because there is no way at all I can keep up with the Domicans doing it from memory. I review all of the ordinances in Spanish from memory every day so I can do them when asked. Don is greatly needed here. There is no retirement so people literally work until they die. Some of them are able to arrange their work to be occasional temple workers but the brothers are always in need. The sisters do not seem to work as much and all shifts have lots of sisters so I almost feel like surplus sometimes. The coordinators are still learning I know Spanish and the ordinances so some of them are still assigning me shifts where first I am a participant in initiatory and then I am supposed to eat and rest and then study. Although they use me more when then know I can do the ordinances, I feel a little bad because I am displacing a Dominican sister who has made a special effort to come and serve at the temple. They don't often assign me to the stand and wait positions; but as I learn where they are, if no one is there, I assign myself. I find I have revised some of my ideas of who serves Senior Missions. In our MTC group was one sister who was 83 and a brother who was 80. Many of the senior missionaries are in their seventies. Many couples are on their second or third mission. One couple here is on their 6th mission. We are the babies. We haven't met any Senior Missionaries younger than us.