Visit to the Fort Lauderdale Temple

This week seemed to move by pretty quickly. It was probably the anticipation of seeing the Fort Lauderdale Temple. We are still shooting for our baptism May 10th and we are going to be able to participate in the dedication of the temple on May 4th! Pretty excited for that.

The week seems like a blur really. We did our standard missionary work and tried to prepare for our upcoming baptism. The temple trip was excellent. We rode a bus for about four hours to get there and mostly I slept, but I did read the whole book of Ether. We arrived and went on the tour right away; there were a few other missionaries that had managed to come from our mission as well.

The temple is a little more the color of sand, if you couldn't tell from the pictures. Everything inside is typical of the Florida landscape. The textured rugs and all the plant life all over the temple was something special. The celestial room was huge! The ceiling was so high and the chandelier was the biggest I've ever seen in a temple before.

Thanks so much for the Easter package and the tie, I've already received several compliments on it. My shoes are very comfortable, by the way. Hopefully they'll last.

Elder Willard

Upcoming baptism

The weeks are moving by super fast now. Next thing I know I'm on my way to bed. The missionary routine is beginning to take effect on my memory.

We had a pretty good week; one of our investigators is the only non-member in his family and his son is on a mission in California. Last Sunday he told us he would like his son to baptize him but we gave him a date to work towards. He said he would pray about. Lo and behold the following Sunday he agreed! May tenth is the plan now!

He is going on our ward's bus to the open house and so are we! The mission let us know about a month before the open house that we could go if our ward provided a bus. We're pretty sure they didn't really want us to go because they gave us such short notice and told us we have to have at least 6 non-members but hey, we have 10 going!

Me and Elder Hemsley are super excited!

Hope everyone is well and treating the missionaries nice over there.

Elder Willard

Conference Weekend

I'm sticking around. I'll be here with Elder Hemsley for another transfer. I'm a little concerned that I've been here too long, but at least we have a car for when it gets really hot. It has been a cool week. I was able to crack a bull whip yesterday at an investigators house and I didn't make a complete fool of myself.

We have a baptismal date coming up in April and we found a lot of people to teach. I am becoming more concerned with the climbing heat and what people are telling me about the summers. I really hope I don't have to bike in the summer.

I particularly liked Elder Zwick's talk in Conference. He actually came to Orlando with L. Tom Perry about 2 months ago for a ward leadership training so I recognized him. I thought Elder Anderson did an excellent job as well. I feel like the whole ordain women movement was put to rest by Elder Oaks in his talk. Thank goodness for that.

It's getting a little toasty here in Clermont, but it's okay. Make sure to throw in an emerald tie for that Easter package you mentioned. Green ties are especially rare and are very fitting for Easter, I think.

Thanks so much,

Elder Willard