From the time right after I was first married,
I have loved Relief Society!
The lessons apply, whatever time of life I am in, and I love getting to know the sisters.
And I love being a visiting teacher!
My visiting teaching partner, Rowena Thiess (4th from the left), works at Dixie State College; she is the head of the Tutoring Department.
I, and the ladies on my "beat," had missed the "grand tour" of the Jeffrey M. Holland Building on the WSC campus given by another member of our branch who works there.
So, on October 29, I picked my ladies up and met Rowena for a tour,
then we had lunch in the Gardiner Center together.
From left: my darling neighbor, Lillian Heuter, who is inactive and is in remission from leukemia; me;
Di Thurgood; Rowena Thiess; Ann Staples; Ann's mother, a St. George native her entire life; and Ann's sister, who is from Sandy.
Behind us, it looks like tile, but it is little booklets that visitors can pull out and write in - little messages that will record passages of time through the coming years.
(Cool idea!)
Very next day, our entire Relief Society was invited to Newcastle, near Enterprise, to tour the giant green houses that provide many potted plants for grocery store chains such as Kroger, Albertsons, etc.
Bill Gordon ( I have talked about the Gordons before - they served a CES mission in Russia with Patty and Hal),
is one of the owners.
Many of the husbands, including Roger, said, "I wanna go." so several of them came, too.
Patty Abraham's (a sister in our branch) son-in-law, Scott (his dad is the other owner), runs the operation.
He gave us a great tour, explaining from start to shipment,
the details of all that goes into growing the beautiful flowers.
A big reason why these greenhouses are located here is the natural hot springs under the ground.
It was amazing to see how they can control light and temperature,
to "tell" the plants exactly when and how to grow.
Their biggest "crop" is poinsettias;
very likely, if you have bought one here or in surrounding states at Christmastime, it was grown here.
We had lunch together at Marv's, a hamburger institution in Enterprise (Marv opened one in St. George, too).
They have THE BEST hamburgers and fries!
Bill graciously gave each person or couple a beautiful potted mum.
This is Jone Liljenquist, a talented musician in our branch and the mother of Stacy's good friend from Connecticut, Marci Benson.
It always amazes me what a small world it is!
Picking out our flowers
(That is Bill Gordon with the ice cream cone!)
These were two great field trips in a row;
the school kids have nothing on us!
