Battalion in my mind

Martha, who always has a great idea.

At the Battalion we give tours from a script.  We use our own words, but there are things we all say.  I hear the first room all day long so things stick in my mind.  The Sisters will give the tour a minimum of 1000 times while on their missions, usually much, much more.  So these sayings creep over into our everyday lives.  For example, one line in the script is, “Great idea, Martha!”  This means none of us, not one, can say, “great idea” without adding “Martha” at the end, at least in our minds.  That will probably last forever.

At the very beginning of the tour, the pictures hanging on the wall start to talk.  The picture of Ephraim starts to sing a song that you hear throughout the tour.  One of his lines is about the song and how it gets stuck in his head.  It happens!  We have all had that song stuck in our heads for days at a time.  We wake up in the middle of the night with that song stuck in our heads.  We can relate, Ephraim.  But I think all of us would like a CD of the music that plays throughout the tour.  It is nice music.  And it does have staying power!

Ephraim has a song stuck in his mind.

We can all quote what the people in the frames say verbatim.  One day it was so funny.  There was a technical glitch and the tour went down for a little while.  The Sisters decided to make their own tour and so stood in front of the frames and quoted everything the people in the frames would have said.  They could all do it.  Craig came in and played the Colonel perfectly.  I wish I had videoed it.  Maybe one day when summer is over and everything slows down, I can do that.

The Battalion tour is full of great quotes.  How about this one, “Despite the difficult circumstances, we chose to be happy.”  Good life lesson.  Or, “Sometimes you need faith to make a decision, sometimes you need it after.”  And I love this one, “God gave us what we needed most from where we least expected it.”

We have been having a LOT of tours of Chinese students who are learning English come through.  We have a couple of tours of them several days a week.  Sixty of them came through on Thursday.  These students are 12 and 13 and are from Guanzhou.  If we have a Mandarin speaking Sister on shift, she can give the tour, but if not they get the video in Mandarin and the tour guide speaks English.  It is kind of tricky for the Sisters to know exactly when to speak to the videos since it is in Mandarin, but our Sisters are champs and can do anything.

Balboa Park has at least 15 museums.  Every Tuesday several of them are open to area residents for free.   We decided to go last Tuesday.  First we went in the San Diego Air and Space museum.  We thought it was great.  So did the zillions of families and day camps that joined us there!  We knew it would be busy.  They had some cool exhibits.  Then we went to the San Diego Automotive museum.  That had some pretty neat old cars and motorcycles.  And a display all about Steve McQueen.  There weren’t quite as many people there.  Finally, we went to the San Diego Hall of Champions.  Not a lot of people there, but it was interesting.  It was a fun day.

 We have been getting phone calls for weeks asking if we’d be doing anything special for Pioneer Day on the 24^th of July commemorating when Brigham Young and the first group of pioneers came in to Salt Lake Valley.  Sorry, but no.  The Mormon Battalion was just finishing up their year enlistment in California then.  Our Director and his wife did buy pizza for us all, though.  The Sisters appreciated that!

Lots of sea lions sunning themselves in La Jolla.

Comic Con

After spending P day morning in La Jolla, we drove to Downtown San Diego for lunch.  We ate on the patio and were able to see many people coming and going to Comic Con at the Convention Center.  I wish we had taken more pictures of people in costume.

 This week we spotlight Sister Hafer from Utah who is just as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.  She attended Utah State with an undeclared major, although she is leaning toward Social Work.  She enjoys skiing, lacrosse and playing the violin. She is Spanish Speaking and has been out nearly 2 transfers.  She is very kind and is always looking for ways to help.  And she smiles a lot!

The Beautiful San Diego Temple

One of our favorite things to do as missionaries is to spend a few hours on Sunday afternoon at the San Diego Temple grounds.  There is no Visitors Center there.  Yet.  So missionaries spend some time there every day to answer questions and talk with the people who come to visit such a beautiful and peaceful place.  Plans have been drawn up for a Visitors Center, but things are on hold for a little while.  Someday.

In the meantime, I simply cannot stop myself from taking pictures of the beautiful temple every single week with my phone.

 

Did you ever wonder why we build temples?  Throughout history, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples. Temples are literally houses of the Lord. They are holy places of worship where individuals make sacred promises with God.  There are 143 operating temples all over the world.  There are 2 under renovation, 13 under construction and 14 announced.  They are all beautiful, every one of them.  But I think the San Diego temple might just be the most beautiful one of all.

This temple is 72,000 square feet and was dedicated in April, 1993.  The open house was six weeks in length with 721,000 attending.  The principal architect was William (Bill) Lewis with the firm of Deems Lewis and McKinley.  The design team was largely non-members except for Bill Lewis and Ken Moeller who did the site design.

The front doors.

This is on the parking lot.

The design motif used throughout the temple is an octagonal figure with 8 points or a square within a square.  This motif appears within the temple, on the exterior and in the design of the grounds.  The figure has no particular meaning but was used to unify design.  However, after construction began this motif or symbol was noticed in one of the figures in a book by Hugh Nibley showing the same design in a mosaic from an early Christian church in Italy.  The mosaic shows Melchizedek and Abel standing on either side of an altar with an altar cloth showing an eight pointed star.  The caption of the figure, which was written by the illustrator and not Brother Nibley, called the eight pointed star “the so-called Seal of Melchizedek.”  However, the object on the altar, with its altar cloth, is a lamb representing Christ not Melchizedek.

The exterior towers are 220 (west) and 225 (east).  Angel Moroni is on the east tower.  He is 14 feet high made of fiber glass covered with gold leaf.  There is a lightning rod sticking a couple of inches out of his head.  There are 24 lightning rods on the temple.

I love this temple.

This week at the Battalion, the new Mission President and his family, plus some of their extended family came through.  That was fun and the Sisters who led their tour had a great time.

Sister Wells out by the well in the courtyard, wearing the Captain hat.  Captain James Allen who recruited the men in the Battalion wore a hat like this.

 Our spotlight this week is on Sister Wells, from Utah.  She is a dance major at BYU. Next time you see her, ask her about her Magic Dance Eye.  She is Mandarin speaking and we love to hear her at work.  She is a Trainer Sister and comes up with imaginative and fun training lessons for the Sisters each week with the other Trainer Sister.  She is trying to learn to whistle like her Dad.  She is always willing to do any assignment and is exceptional at doing school tours. 

Various

I have been taking a few pictures of various things Craig does around the Battalion.  The Sisters love to ask him questions and advice.  If one of the Sisters has a problem, others will tell her to, "talk to Elder Robinson, he is wise."

He puts water in the sluice where everyone pans for gold when we are on in the mornings and turns it all off and closes it up when we are on at night.  He hammers big chunks of iron pyrite into nuggets and salts the sluice with them.

 

He puts out/takes in the sign on the corner and the rocking chairs on the porch. 

 

He makes sure the printer that prints pictures of your family is working well, has paper and ink.  He helps fix audio visual stuff with the servers.  A new computer will have to be put in this week.  We’ll see who is on shift for that.

He sweeps and cleans up the property. This includes the covered wagon out front.  He manages the parking lot during busy times.

He comes up front to talk to people who have various issues and need a listening ear.  Some days it is pretty busy in that regard.

He knows me well enough to remind me to do some of my responsibilities that I might forget.  I am glad I have the best missionary companion!

We had our monthly FHE with the seniors last Monday.  The new Mission President and his family came.  The all said a few words and it was a nice meeting.  The Sisters are all looking forward to their interviews with him this month.

 This week we decided to go to Pacific Beach, which is close to where we live.  We walked down the Crystal Pier, which is privately owned, but open to the public.  There are over 20 cottages right on the pier you can rent.  What a wonderful place that would be to stay!  Except for the million or so people walking by.  Lots of people fish off the pier.  Another delightful day in San Diego.

Talking with a fisherman on the pier.  Two very small fish were caught while we were standing there.

Someone left these cute birds on a bush for us to enjoy.

At the Battalion, there are three senior couples plus the Director and his wife.  We do work with one of the other senior couples on our shortest shift on Sunday mornings, but we never see the other couple except as one of us is coming and the other is going at shift change.  This week we decided to get together.  Looking at the schedule, we could either have dinner on their P day, or lunch on ours.  We decided on dinner and we had a great time. I hope we get to do it again.  They live in Orem so maybe we can continue the friendship after our missions.

This week we spotlight wonderful Sister Stephens from Ohio.  She is a quiet leader.  The other Sisters look to her because she is steady and consistent.  She is always thinking and has great suggestions.  She goes out of her way to be helpful.  She goes to Ohio University and is going to be a nurse.

This cute boy stood by Sister Stephens throughout the tour and held her hand for some of it.