Temple adventures

Every Tuesday brings a new adventure at the temple. This past week was actually quite unique. We found a bat - not that it's unique, but still unusual enough to be exciting!

The Elders and I also had a chance to clean around all the doors and windows (at least as high as we could reach). I will never forget Elder Kennedy and I having a seriously discussion about life while sweeping the dead carcasses' of gnats and mosquitoes off the temple brick and window sills. I am so lucky to have this volunteer job! I feel part of the "Tuesday temple family". I can't ever imagine quitting. 

About an hour into our day, this amazing gal stopped  and asked if she could help. She had just finished baptisms and was waiting for her brother who was doing an endowment session. Typically, we don't take them up on it, but for some reason I said sure and gave her a cultivator. She was a trouper because it was a HOT day, and she worked with her dress on. Even the temple security guy stopped to say he had never seen a garden volunteer working in a dress. I think it made Aneya feel pretty amazing. She was a hard worker and I'm so thankful she showed up. We trimmed down all the peonies today. I lost count after doing 25. 

Elder Kennedy got the job of trying to get this graffiti off the hardscape on the south pavilion side. It looked like spray paint to me and it wasn't coming off. Later, Tokie said that someone had actually just used the leaf of a nearby plant to do it. It just made me sad. I told Tokie she should have security check the video footage so the perpetrators could be caught. Truthfully, it was probably a 7 or 8 year old kid who had no idea the difficulty they were causing. 

Elder Kennedy was given the opportunity to go swimming in the water fountain. Not literally, but he was given the task to wade in and pick up all the coins that people throw into it. It has to be cleaned out at least once a week. It looked like so much fun, but a little bit disrespectful as there were a lot of patrons around at that point. Elder Kennedy found an Italian coin and two Euros (which he happily took home), so he was super excited about that. Who knows if he will ever get that chance again. Most of the time the temple engineers do that job. 

The last adventure of the day was going to get ice-cream during our lunch break. Like I said, it was a super hot day and ice-cream just needed to happen. Elder Kennedy was so generous and let me borrow money so I could pay for mine. He also paid for Elder Renchers suckers (he wasn't in the mood for ice-cream), but once he was ready the pay the cashier told him that missionaries always get free ice-cream. We laughed and laughed with delight. It was the happiest kind of day and I will never forget how hard we worked, and how much fun we had together. The main gardener was on vacation and so the Elder and I were "in charge" for the second half of the morning. It was so much fun.