The weather is warming up and the birds are getting bigger

We have been watching a mother pigeon and her 2 babies that are living in a window well on the south side of the mezzanine in the JSMB. The babies are getting big fast and will most likely fly away very soon.  We’ve been told by the other missionaries that most likely there will be several more sets of birds hatched over the next few months. We’ve also been watching for the “return of the falcon”. Apparently there is a falcon that returns every year to lay her eggs somewhere on the roof near the 5^th floor.

The first picture shows the mama bird setting on the nest and then this second picture you can see how big the babies are getting.  We check on them each day as we take our walk around the mezzanine floor.

The weather has been pleasantly mild and the gardens around temple square are blooming, you can almost see them get bigger while standing there. It is interesting how the flower gardens are prepared; each is covered by a white mesh cloth covering and then in preparation for April conference the covers are removed so the plants can bloom and grow. This picture has had the white covering removed and the plants are just beginning to get going.  We'll take more pictures next week to show the progress of the growth and blossoming of the flowers in this bed.

We have completed our two weeks of training and had our bread and honey butter go forth brunch and our assignment was made. We will be serving in the British Zone in the Family History Library.  The Zone Leader told us it will take us 3-4 months to really get trained. We will have a devotional on Monday morning at 7:30 and then report to our new area to start our training. We are excited about the assignment and know that we will have a lot to learn to be able to be of any service. We both have family ancestors from the British Isles so I'm sure we will be much better prepared to make progress in identifying our progenitors.

We live north of the Library less than 2 blocks so it will be a very short walk to our assignment (Byde reminds me that it is downhill which means of course that it’s uphill coming home).

Thursday night we went to the Assembly Hall and heard Julie Beck who spoke on “Faith of Latter-day Sisters: A Personal Perspective”. It was very interesting as she told about her experiences as she served as the General Relief Society President. It was touching to hear her tell about an encounter she had with a woman at a UN meeting and the woman was quizzing about how she managed to be head of such a large organization.  Sister Beck explained to her that we have a “buddy system” in the church where we look out for each other; a nice way to describe visiting teaching.  

Friday night we attended a concert at the Assembly Hall entitled, “Sounds of Music from Around the World” performed by Temple Square Missionaries (there are 191 young sister missionaries representing over 50 languages who serve there). The program was spectacular and the talent of the young sister missionaries  was amazing. It was especially touching to see them standing all around the perimeter of the building singing acapella "Called to serve". As we spoke with the Palmers afterwards (he is the son of Wanda West Palmer) we learned that most of the sisters who had major parts in performing in the program will be leaving the mission within four months and he felt they might not have that much talent together again to do such a performance. There was a John Philip Sousa piano quartet, "The Stars and Stripes Forever" that was so professionally done.  Brother Palmer told us that the rehearsals were all done on the lunch break and after hours.