"Come, Come Ye Saints..."

What a crazy week and 1/2! I didn't make my goal to update last week, but I am making sure I get it accomplished tonight! We had a busy week! I started work at Southeastern Behavioral Healthcare and my schedule keeps us up and going. I work 7am - 3pm and I found out this week, I have no Holidays off! I wasn't too happy about that, but after a few days of trying to wrap my mind around it, I have come to realize that maybe it's my turn to serve others on holidays, besides myself. And I did tell them I had to go home for sure at Christmas, so I am taking unpaid days during Christmas, which to me is fully worth it! Then we had Home evening on Monday, Missionaries and a family over for dinner on Tuesday, Young Women's on Wednesday, Enrichment on Thursday, and Date night on Friday! Then on Saturday we got to go to the temple! Wahoo!

We never want to take for granted the wonderful blessing of having a temple close to us. We are in the Winter Quarters Temple district and it is a small temple that was dedicated in 2001. It is 2 1/2 hours away from Sioux Falls. But before, they had to go to Chicago which was 10 hours, and before that it was SLC which was 17 hours. How blest we are!! We actually had a Youth Temple trip that we went with. We thought we would be able to do the adult session as well, but it worked out that in the smaller temples you have to be scheduled and have your name on the list. We had the youth baptisms at 11-1pm, and the Adult session our names were on was at 12pm. The brethren are all needed to do the work in the baptistry, so we wouldn't be able to do the session. We went and removed our names from the session list, and there were people in a standby line, so grateful to take our spot. It is fun to see how operations of these small temples is different and hope that we can share the gospel and help the schedules to be even more varied.

It is a beautiful temple located on the same hillside as the Winter Quarters Mormon Pioneer Cemetery. There is a beautiful memorial to all of those saints who lost their lives on the Exodus to Utah. We also visited the visitor's center across the street and took a tour to learn about what exactly took place at Winter Quarters. I hadn't realized that this was the place Brigham Young had the saints build up to stay for winter. It was getting to be late fall when they came through Nebraska, and he worried that snow would come shortly. So they built log homes and a city to keep them through winter. But due to the disease of Cholera which they received from the infected mosquitos, many lost their lives in the terrible conditions of winter. This is also where Brigham Young was sustained as prophet. The song "Come, Come, Ye Saints" was written here and became the anthem for Saints as they strived to make it through the difficult road ahead.

As we were there I just thought about how all of us will pass through "Winter Quarters." The saints were such fabulous models for how we should continue to stay steadfast in Christ. They had sacrificed all that they had to move West. They didn't even know they were going to the Salt Lake Valley. They only knew they had left their beautiful homes, some family, and lives in Nauvoo and in graves along the way. Yet many testified that they would never take a different course in their lives, because it had made them stronger. And it gave them eyes to see the Hand of God in every step. I want to remember and be like them in my journey here as well. We can do hard things with the help of our God. He is mindful of each of us and the journey ahead. We must just keep our eyes fixed on the goal of going and becoming all that God wants and needs us to be!

Hope all is well in your lives. Know that we are praying for you and love you!
Have a great week!
Malinda and Thad :)