Though the temple is closed, we are invited to come and put the luxury of extra time to good use: We helped Sister Patricia complete the inventory of all items in the temple laundry. We learned all about the TIS (Temple Information System), so we are more fully qualified to prepare schedules etc and serve as shift coordinators. President Baldwin challenged us all to “brush up on our Portuguese”. Well, that meant Square 1 for us — 0 Portuguese. Even if we had done 2 years of Portuguese on Duolingo, it would have been Brazilian, and our patrons from Mozambique speak European Portuguese. We had a brilliant idea: our cute friend Tina is Portuguese, perhaps we could get her to work with us so we can pronounce the words correctly.
Tina is a single sister with a large yard and no husband to help with upkeep. She is very self-reliant and has all kinds of bounty growing in her yard. She was overjoyed for the offer of help. We soon had some projects to repay her for her kindness. The men rebuilt her stairs up to the planting terrace.
The guys built a support trellis for Tina’s grapes.
The girls had the privilege of working with Tina, who serves as the Primary President in the Berea Ward, to provide the Primary Easter activity while the guys were working. Tina taught the children some letters of the Hebrew alphabet. We girls dressed everyone up to re-enact the scriptural account of the empty tomb. We had Mary discover the empty tomb, Peter and John running to the tomb. John got there first but waited for Peter to enter first. There they found the empty tomb with the symbolic folded napkin, indicating the Master would be returning. There were 2 angels (in white t-shirts and glittering belts) asking: “Why seek ye the living amongst the dead? Luke 24:6
Tina had every detail figured out to give the children a Biblical experience. Refreshments were things that would have been eaten when Jesus was here on the earth: figs, dates, pomegranate, grapes, bread to dip in olive oil, cheese, water, milk, and fish. What a nourishing, wonderful learning experience. The children rolled the stone to find the hidden Easter eggs.