Sister Takeshige at Temple Square: July 8th "The Struggle is Real "

I promise that there have been good spiritual experiences and awesome bombtastic tours, but here are the most memorable happenings from this week:

1. Saturday morning it was our turn to take the hourly Spanish tour, and we were waiting by the flagpole for people to gather. While we were waiting, we saw this man talking to the English tour sisters, Sister Tekurio from Tahiti, and Sister Pech from Mexico, just a few feet away. As we kept watching, we saw him walk over to one of the flower planters of Temple Square, walk back to Sister Pech, and put the flower in her hair. He started shouting, "WOW, SHE LOOKS BEAUTIFUL!" He turned to us, and said, "THE OTHER HAWAIIAN SISTER HAD A FLOWER IN HER HAIR SO THE MEXICAN ONE NEEDED ONE TOO!" And then he stumbled away. Sister Pech did look beautiful. There is nothing like starting your morning with a drunken man decorating your hair.

2. We were taking a tour of about 30 English speakers. We escorted them to the Family History Library, where the Elders there taught these guests how to find relatives and do family history. In the short one hour seminar, I saw these guests' faces light up and get so excited as they found parts of their family that they never even knew existed. Hooray for family history work. It's magical.

3. Last night at 9 pm we came home to a flooded apartment. One of the pipes in the bathroom was broken and leaked all over the hallway carpet. It basically turned into a swamp. We called someone to fix it and they had to come at 11pm at night. Hooray for adventures. Now our carpet is all torn up, because they had to clean under it, and there are 6 industrial fans whirring in our apartment.

This week I have learned a lot about being bold with guests. A lot of times, they reject you and your heart hurts because you know that if they continued to learn about Christ's restored gospel would fix their lives and their families, and you can see it in their eyes that they know it too... but for some reason or other, they say no. AND IT HURTS. And sometimes you want to stop and just be the nice non-overbearing tour guide friend. But as I have worked on being bold and inviting them to act, I have seen them feel the spirit even more. It's neat.

Sister Takeshige

I told this guy, "I love your shirt!" and he said, "I don't know what it says"