London Baby: First Presidency Appreciation Luncheon

Today was our annual First Presidency Appreciation Luncheon. Our department met together with all the members of our TDEC (Temple Department Executive Council - Elders Walker, Kikuchi, Zivic, Gibbons, and Baxter) and Elder Richard G. Scott for a program and then lunch. I was part of one of the musical numbers. We sang Away in a Manger. Tom Coburn our Managing Director, called us the singing septuplets.

Elder Scott also took some time to share a message. He said we should think about what we did before this life to merit and qualify us for having the blessing of working with temples - and that we had to have done something. He spoke on temples and said that we should go to the temple, take our watch off, and spend time there unhurried. If we finish a session, we should turn around and go again. The apostolic blessing he left with us was that we would be able to see the good parts of what we do, we'd be able to see the things that we need to change in our lives, and that we'd know of our Heavenly Father's love for us. Then he said he wanted to speak to us not as Richard Scott, but as one of our Heavenly Father's servants. That's when he bore a very powerful testimony about our Savior, Jesus Christ.

After the program we had a luncheon and I was seated at Elder Scott's table with Elder Gibbons, his wife, and a few other people. Everyone was pretty quiet at first so I asked Elder Scott about his watercolors on display at the Deseret Book flagship store and found out about how he got started painting, how many he's done, who's his favorite all-time artist, etc. His favorite painter is Carl Bloch and we were all recommended to go and see his display which is currently at BYU through May. He asked what each of us do in the temple department and then we spoke some about what he did when he worked as a nuclear engineer in Washington D.C. It was a great experience!

I came to mom and dad's to spend the night in order to attend the temple like Elder Scott said. Mom wrapped presents, I finished planning our NY/DC trip and dad tried setting up the new bluray player that I finally ended up helping him with.