Training Begins and Visit From Shana

I began training with the outgoing secretary right after the Mission Devotional held every Monday morning in the chapel on the Mezzanine level of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Afterward I just get on the elevator (or more often, walk up the stairs) to the third floor, where the mission office and Training Zone are located.  The outgoing secretary is Sister Shelley and everyone is grieved that she is leaving.  I have big shoes to fill. She is kind and patient and assures me I have plenty of time to learn everything she does before she leaves.  But I think perhaps not everything she knows by then.

I often feel I was prepared for this assignment in a particular way and have felt calm even though I should be apprehensive. I have yet to be asked to do anything that was completely foreign to me, all things I have done before, either at school or on the job or at home.  If I had come sooner or later, I would not have been here at the right time to train with Sister Shelley.  I think the Lord knew I was going to have this responsibility and was kind enough to prepare me.  A little.

I was able to reassure President Peterson that I had considered serving in a mission office before I requested the Family and Church History Headquarters Mission.  He seemed relieved that I would not be too disappointed that I would not be directly involved with family history research and training.  I realized pretty quickly that no missionary spends their day working on their own family history.  We are all trained to serve others all week.  Then we are given ½ a day per week and one full day per month to do our own family history research or attend the temple.  I’m very happy to be here.

Monday night we had our first social with the group of new missionaries we came into the mission with.  We met in Elder and Sister Session’s apartment social room, like a big family room with leather couches in front of a large fireplace.  We all brought food and went around the room and told about ourselves and what we were doing in our new zone assignment. It was a chance to catch up with each other.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings this week I attended a brand new training course at the Church History Library. We were the first class to take it. It was intended for the new missionaries training in the Church History Library Zone, but someone thought the new mission secretary could benefit from it, too.  That was an inspired decision.  I got an overview of what they do in that zone (which is good for the secretary to know) and some of the classes just what I needed.  And as an added bonus, I got to attend them with Sister Calandra and eat lunch with her afterward.  She was separated from Sister Munger and I who were both assigned on the mission floor while she was assigned to the Church History Library.

Tuesday morning we met at the Lion House Restaurant for breakfast instead of prayer meeting.  At what other job would you get to do that?  The mission ten (pounds) everyone talks about is no joke.

Thursday night my youngest child, Shana and Zana arrived after about 10 hours of driving to spend the night with me.  Friday while I was working, Shana took Zana to the train station (Zana grew up in North Ogden) to go visit her old friends while Shana spent the morning poking around Temple Square.  At noon she came up to the mission office so she could see where I will be serving and so Sister Shelley could meet her.  Then Shana and I went to lunch on the 10^th floor (which has amazing views) in the Garden Restaurant.

After lunch we embarked on some serious sightseeing.  We watched the new version of the Joseph Smith movie in the Legacy Theater.  We both loved it. We spent a lot of time at the Church History Museum (see pictures).  They had a special display of artwork by members throughout the world.  We also spent some time in the South Visitor’s Center listening to President Monson speak on the family.

Saturday we tried to tour the Conference Center (it was closed because of the Young Women’s Conference that night), but visited the Church History Library instead. Then we walked to the other side of Temple Square and checked out the City Creek Center across the street.  It had its grand opening a couple of days before.  Pretty impressive.  It has a creek running through it, fountains, ponds, waterfalls, a retractable glass roof, a sky bridge over Main Street that connects the upper level of the stores on both sides of the street with incredible views, and 90 stores.  The pictures are of Flat Gramma with a living statue (a girl dressed in and painted gold) and Shana with a bear.  I have no idea why, but Shana just wanted a picture with him…or her.

We went next door to the Deseret Book store to get an Ensign for April and then walked back to my apartment for lunch and to rest our feet.  After we got our second wind we went to Wal-Mart to transfer my prescriptions there.  Even Wal-Mart is unique in Utah.  It had an escalator for shopping carts.

Then we drove to the Salt Lake City Cemetery where 120,000 people are buried, including quite a few of the presidents and apostles of the Church.  The headstones date back to pioneer times.  We found as many of the presidents as we could and took pictures.  We both were very interested and spent a lot of time walking among the graves reading inscriptions.

Then we decided we still had time to go to Heritage Park and see the “This Is the Place” monument.  We left our map at home, so that took a little longer than we had planned for.  Shana swears she enjoyed the adventure of exploring Utah.  We finally got there and enjoyed a beautiful setting sun behind the various statues (more pictures).

At about 11:00 p.m. we picked Zana up at the train station and went home and to bed.  In the morning the girls went to Church at 8:30 a.m. across the street at my building.  Then they came back to the apartment to change clothes, quickly pack, and head home for Arizona.  They took my Church cds with them for the drive home and arrived safely in good time with no trouble.  Another blessing!