Not your momma's Gatorade

Written by Uncle George:  April 26, 1907
Rose soon after 5:00 a.m.  Albert Thatcher, janitor of the "Rock Church" (RLDS) assisted me in getting ladders and to the top of the two-story brick building and I secured some negatives.  Very difficult climb we had in the church tower.  I have felt all day that I should have more time to get views of the important points in Church History; so telegraphed W.C. Spence (transportation agent for the Church).  Bed about 10:30 p.m.  Still cold.  Weary tonight.

Val:  April 26, 2012
I was not a "water girl."  I was a "water distribution engineer."

Apparently, someone somewhere saw me chug more than my fair share of the crack-laced BYU hosting punch on April 25th because today I had water duty at the temple open house.

Me and Adam Sandler, we get each other.

No one lavishing me loving punch-craving looks.  No one in my debt for distilling that nectar of goodness.

"Water?"  I said with my best girly voice.

"I guess" they would sadly reply.

Seeing them drink it this way may have been

very entertaining.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No one wants the water boy job.  I have seen the movie.  No respect.  No respect.

But on April 26th, that was my lot in life.  Schlepping water.  In clear plastic cups.  When people see those cups, they know that there is not hope of pink lemonade or red punch.  The clear cup gives the secret away.

Helloooooo!  We just opened our new chapel.  No red punch allowed.

It wasn't as fun working the snack bar at the open house this day, so I was relieved that I got to leave early and go do my Uncle George shots in Independence.

That was until I went outside.

Um, yes, it was "hotter than Hell" as my mother says.  Thanks for asking.  Where was my open house water now?

You had frost and cold weather.  I was so hot that my clothes stuck to my back (shout out to humidity).

Sweet.

I tromped around the grounds with my trusty Richard coffee table book in hand. Sweating.

I didn't get to climb the Rock Church towers to photograph.  Sweating.

I got grass clippings blown all over me and my church clothes from those inconsiderate lawn mower fellas,  who were sweating too.  Clearly their dehydration was taking its toll for them to do something so unchristian on the Temple Lot.

Which actually became a problem since the grass stuck to my sweaty back and my sweaty forehead.  I had grass in my clothes.  My hair.  And of course, my sweaty hands.  Don't tell Richard, but it got on his black coffee table book, too.

I looked like that guy that owns the car that is covered in grass.  See here:

 Man, if only I had worn a tie...

Even the flowers were sweating.

I know, I know.  We get it.  You were sweaty.  Big baby.  

Get to the pictures, Valsy.

 George  Temple Lot

 Val Temple Lot

Uncle, may I point out that in the above image I had to stand in the intersection to get this.  Danger Will Robinson!    And see that spire smack in the middle?  We will get to that in a minute.

 George--street the Mission Home was on

 Val--Street the Mission Home is not on

But the church that Harry S. Truman 

got married is 

And some lovely Shasta Daisies

George's Temple Lot view from the Rock Church spire

 Val's Temple Lot view from the street because I do not 

know Albert Thatcher, who I doubt is still the janitor of the 

Rock Church.  And if he is, I might be just too plain 

scared to climb up some creepy church tower with him.

I saw that World War Z zombie movie last night.

Those undead folks who should be dead are scary.

Ok, let's get back to the pretty-sure-I-might-sweat-to-death field trip to the Temple Lot.  I was hot and I wanted some AC.  Yep, I said it.  I am totally bragging to you that we have an invention that even foot-washing pioneers would covet.  

Air conditioning.

Since Albert is long gone, there was only one other place I thought I should visit that I could find some.

.

It is known as the Community of Christ Temple. Dude, I TOTALLY know you would have visited it, too.

You weren't here long enough to catch local lingo, so let me help out.  To the community around here, they say there are two types of Mormons:  the "regular" Mormons and the "other" Mormons.

You and I are "regular" Mormons, meaning that we come from the church that went west with Brigham Young.

The "other" Mormons are the ones who stayed here in the mid-west and basically prescribe to what Emma Smith and her family outline as doctrinal soundness.  And they built the spire temple.

Upside down ice cream cone.  Conk shell.  Big silver thing.  Is that your temple?  Here are some of the names and questions one "regular" Mormon hears.

George from the south east of Temple Lot

Val from the south east corner of the Temple Lot

Let's take a look see!

One more thing I hear a lot of---"You can get a good cup of coffee in that temple."  As you may know, you won't hear that too often in a "regular" LDS temple.

So I am going to share with you what I saw that day I was soaking up their free AC!

Uh, you won't see much of this in the LDS Church.

Most men don't 1980's roll their pants anymore.  :)

Tree of Life 

(which looked like it needed some fats in its diet)

(Hey!  Is that my back yard?)

A gift from a chapter in Japan

LOVE this

This was cool.  This depicts Joseph Smith's journey

into the Sacred Grove and how we all must

make the same journey in our life grove to reach 

a relationship with our Heavenly Father. 

This was cool.

Here is someone in anguish...

probably because they missed my water shift.

NO!  Where is Water Val?!

This represents the harvest of souls

Here is the inside of the Conk Shell.

Which is really what it is supposed to be.

"Alex, I will take random church shapes for $200."

Did I mention that the Community of Christ World Conference Center

is the site of the UN Peace Plaza, dedicated to the UN Peace Keeping Forces.

Harry Truman (after dropping two nuclear bombs on the Japanese) came to speak here about peace after helping formulation the United Nations.

Nothing says "peace" like military annihilation of some cities.

This statue is called the ever-imaginative name "Girl with Dove."

George--who obviously knows more than one building janitor

Val--see that red truck?  That is the grass-spewing lawn mowers. 

You can even see him in the white shirt.

Speaking of spewing, I wanted to tell you how my day ended on April 26th, 2012.

My husband were slated to give tours in the temple for the open house.  I had been a tour guide for 7 years at Temple Square so I was like "Mr. Fun, back up. I got this."

Although I didn't.  I have developed a fun little neurological disorder called epilepsy which has basically shorted out much of my short term memory.  When I gave my tour I was humbled by how much I stunk.  So I turned the reigns over to the Hugh Nibley of our family.  

My son was actually a bootie putter-oner for the evening so we were serving together.  But separately.  Doing separate things.  So I guess we really weren't serving together at all.

The good news is when our tours were done, we got to drop our guests off at the snack bar (hello delicious punch and snickerdoodles) and head off for more fun.

Except one tour.  This is where the puking spewing comes in.

When we hit the sealing room, one of  the guests passed out.  And when we got her to the parking lot, she threw up.

Emergency buddies were on hand.

Know what her problem was?  Yep, dehydration.   And I thought I was hot and sweaty.

If she had only pit stopped at the temple water station first thing this morning, I could have saved her some troubles.  And a dry cleaning bill.

She would have sipped in delight and surely said "Now, that's some high quality H2O."

Love,

Valsy

PS/  Here are some little bonus photos: