Friday Fun--August 19th

Friday morning, we headed to the Bountiful Temple for our Zone Temple Session.

The views to the west are amazing, especially if you are a fan of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.....

Beautiful flowers all around....

Another look to the west through the archways

I caught some photos of missionaries as they came out of the temple after the session...

Sister Dixon with Sister Cisneros
and then me with Sister Cisneros

Sister Coley, the newest missionary in our zone

Sister Forman and Sister Elder

A stack of bags while pictures are being taken....

Jena with the Elders

We then headed to Plates and Palates, a small restaurant in Bountiful, recommended by the Parkers.

It was fun to spend time together in conversation after a busy work week.

We got home in time to change clothes, maybe answer some phone calls and emails and then headed out for the next mission activity of the day---

Mission Branch Party at the Holmes' home!

They have a beautiful house in Farmington and Sister Holmes had thought it was a great idea to invite the Mission Branch up (which is the full-time missionaries) to their house while they still have rental tables and chairs from their back yard reception for their son two days earlier (and he actually had gotten married the day before this party.)  It might have used the tables and chairs effectively, but I think she was ready for a very long nap when it was all over.  I didn't get any pictures of our missionaries from the event.

When we first walked in, they asked us to put some fact about ourselves that others didn't know (since we all already had name tags. :) ).  I put that we had lived in Hong Kong; Gary said that he scuba dived--lots of missionaries had also scuba dived so that led to lots of conversations.  Without any help from us, Jena came up with her own "I act the theatre."  People had fun talking to her about plays that she liked and ones that she had been in.  For tonight, "Guys and Dolls" was her favorite play.

We had some rain at the beginning, but President Holmes was determined--rain or shine!

Their backyard is big and very beautiful---

and included a small putting green which we all tried out.

Dinner started and some used umbrellas while they ate, but by the time we got our food the rain had stopped and the weather was great for the rest of the evening.

We did the "Find a Relative" on the Family Search app and Gary was connected to a 2nd cousin and in this case, they actually both knew their shared cousin-- Twilla Bird (and others in her family).  It was fun learning about some new missionaries who we didn't know.

It was a good evening and an opportunity to socialize with more of these great missionaries in our mission.  Thanks to President and Sister Holmes for making it possible and sharing their home with all of us.