Temple Open House for the Public

May 21, 2010

Dearest Family and Friends,

Today we held the first open house for the public; there has been a constant flow of people coming to tour the temple from 8 am to 8pm. Larry and I hosted one of the five video rooms. The tour guides are all Filipino which is wonderful, because this is their temple, and they can speak the language if necessary. .The young missionaries are assigned the ‘REFRESHMENT CENTER’ so they can interact with the guests and answer questions. Everyone who came seemed genuinely interested. It’s hard to tell who are members and who are not-and it’s really hard to tell how old they are. I talked to children I thought must be 7 or 8 and they were 12oor 13!. Their skin is all shades of brown tones, but their smiles can melt hearts! It is so fun to watch the youth who come to help. They do one thing that is really unique. They meet the incoming cars, helping them to park in the most convenient spots and then hand each person a white umbrella to help shade them from the burning sun’s rays as they walk to the chapel. As they leave the Church for the Temple, they are handed a white umbrella again. Looking down from our third floor windows we see the tops of the white umbrellas bobbing up and down. One of the expressions used here is that we are to convene in the “sacrament hall” ; that does put the emphasis where it should be, doesn’t it?

This morning in the prayer meeting where we were all given instructions, Elder Ko who is a member of the Area Presidency and of the 2^nd Quorum of the Seventy, spoke to all assembled in the chapel. He told how the comment cards written by the VIPS who have toured for the past three days were so favorable, how they loved the temple, especially the Celestial Room, but many independent of each other had written that the thing they loved the very most was the people who were serving; they were always smiling and offering help, that they seemed to be filled with light. It is so true; these Filipino people in the Church are full of love and light. They say “Good morning, Sister” Good afternoon, Sister” or Good evening, Sister”. The workers on the grounds and those finishing the apartments are equally friendly but they say, “Good morning, Mam” or Good morning, Sir”. Yes,they are still working on the apartments. The outside building crew has worked all night the past two days to get all the planting and landscaping in, and the inside crew is still painting and replacing tile that apparently was not up to code. Our washers and dryers are almost working—we have one laundry room for our whole floor but it is huge.

We were told today that when the General Authorities arrive, we will be moved to the patron housing on the 2^nd floor so the General Authorities can use our apartments. President Monson is going to use the Temple President’s home and President Eyring is going to use the Mission President’s home. Won’t that be wonderful to be able to say that we shared our apartment with . . .

One sobering experience we had today was talking to the taxi driver. All the taxi cab drivers workfor a boss or a company. They have to pay the boss 900 pesos a day plus buy their own gas. Our ride to one mall is about 40 pesos and to the other mall about 70 to 80 pesos depending on how many traffic lights he has to stop for or how busy the traffic is. I told Larry we needed to increase our tips just so the drivers get a little more. How they live is beyond me! We look out our window and see the temple and the stake center. But if we look out the windows across the hall, we see a different world—the homes? Of the “middle classs” Filipino –ramshackle two and three story houses with clotheslines strung from one side to the other. It makes us grateful for what we have, but I am almost embarrassed to be living in such a lovely apartment when just 100 yards away people are living in such poverty!

We love you and pray for you! Mom, Grandma, Mary (and Dad, Grandpa , Larry)