This past week has been really special!
Rick and I have been serving on the Tooele Valley Communications Council for just about a year now. In that calling we have been working with the business, government, and interfaith leaders in Grantsville.
There are eight couples serving on this committee, and we each have different faiths that we have been working with in the Tooele Valley. The directors of our group are Brent and Alexis Beazer from Erda.
Rick and I have been attending four different denominations this past year. We attend services with Grantsville's First Baptist Church, the Shepherd's House in Lakepoint, San Felipe Catholic Church in Wendover and Mountain View Baptist Church in Grantsville. We have been trying to build bridges of friendship with each of the church leaders. After just a few months of attending the Mountain View Baptist Church the leaders approached Rick (I was out of town) and asked us to not come anymore. We felt really bad about that but of course, wanted to do what they asked of us. We still miss the members of their congregation but have been able to keep good relations with the pastors...just not at their church meetings.
We have been readily accepted by The First Baptist Church and The Shepherd's House and their congregants. We love to attend and have grown quite close with the some of the members.
We have only attended the Wendover Catholic Church a few times but are still working on building trust and friendship with the Father there.
Well, the past couple of months we have been working at inviting the interfaith, business, and government leaders to the Deseret Peak Temple Open House. We had many people accept the invitation and actually come! We were so happy about that!
We first went to the Construction Day Open House for all of those who worked on the temple.
We met up on Saturday for that and ended up spending half of the day there.
We were able to walk through the temple and get a view of all of the beautiful rooms!
Here is a picture of our TVCC group.
The first row is Jolynn Wilson, Colleen Johnson, me, Alexis Beazer, Brent Beazer, Maresa Manzione and Melanie Hammer.
The second row is Tom Wilson, Bob Johnson, Rick, Melanie Thompson, Dave Manzione and Jeff Hammer.
The top row is Josh Spaulding, Heidi Spaulding, Todd Thompson, and Rich Butler (the secretary of our council).
These people are pretty amazing! They are the cream of the crop and we are so blessed to be able to be working with them on the TVCC!
We started the invited guest portion of the Open House on Monday September 23rd. I started in the morning, but Rick worked that day and didn't arrive till 4:00 pm.
We arrived by 9 am and kind of hung back during the Media Tour. which took place at 11am. Next was the influencer/social media tour which started at 1pm. During the morning we didn't have a lot to do so we spent a lot of the time getting to know each other better. We have worked together for a whole year but really haven't spent a lot of time getting to know each other personally. It was just great to get to know some on the council a bit better. Now I need to make the effort to get to know the others in the coming weeks.
At 4pm that day the invited guests started coming in full force. We each worked together at the check in desk, the reception, and following on the tours. We were scheduled to follow the Granstville Stake Presidents and their wives on the tours that they were leading. Sometimes we had to fill in when others needed help. Between Monday and Wednesday I went on eleven tours and Rick went on twelve. He was able to help in translating (Spanish) on two different tours.
While we had many people come on Tuesday, our most special day was Wednesday when our interfaith leaders were scheduled. The Mountain View Pastors, Ron Ehmann and his wife Wendy and Bob Toomer and his wife Penny agreed to come to the Open House. We were thrilled that they accepted the invitation! Bob invited an old friend of his, Nathan Anderson who is a member of the Church, to join us.
I was surprised that they did not ask many question while on the tour. I felt like they would have a lot but they stayed pretty quiet most of the time. I hope they came away with better feelings towards us and The Church in general. The tour took so long that we could not join them in the reception area for very long but had to get on the next scheduled tour when our First Baptist friends came in.
Right from the get go we had a great time with them. Those who came were Scot McCord, the associate pastor, his wife Tiffani, their son Shawn and Scot's mother Eve Kee and Tiffani's mother, Linda Smith. Tiffani was full of love and hugs for me and so many others. She is a socialite and knows many people in the area. Rick stayed with Eve (Tiffani's mother in law) and gave her his arm for most of the tour. Scot and Tiffani pretty much stayed together with Shawn and Linda.
One special thing that happened was when we were in the celestial room. We were asked not to talk while we were in there and we would express any thoughts or feelings when we got to the next room; one of the sealing rooms. As we were exiting the celestial room I reached over to Eve and gave her a hug and told her I loved her. She told me she loved me and looked me into the eye and said, "my daughter."
I thought that was really sweet, especially because when we first met months ago, she seemed a little wary of "the Mormons'" intentions in attending their congregation. I am so glad we are past that and she knows that we are just trying to build bridges of friendship with them. It was cute because she lovingly called me her daughter one more time in the reception room after the tour.
Rick and me by the front flower garden.
Scot and Tiffani McCord
Scot and his mother Eve Kee
After the tour we all went into the reception area and had some refreshments. We talked and laughed and planned another get together in the near future. All in all it was an amazing and joyful experience to be involved with the Invited Guest Special Tour. We were exhausted after 13 hour days for 3 days straight, but we would love to do it all again in a heartbeat!
We will remember this special event for many years to come! The temple open house is scheduled to run until October 19th and then be dedicated on November 10th. It's so exciting to have such a magnificent temple so close to us. We are so blessed! We already feel such a love for this beautiful, holy temple right here in our valley!
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