Service with a Smile

Little known fact: We don't call these fireside tours; we call them service tours. We sing to share the gospel, and we look for opportunities to help out in the communities we visit. On Wednesday, our service emphasis led us to the small town of Retsil, Washington, where we cleaned graves at the veterans cemetery and sang in the Washington Veterans Home.

On Friday, our service emphasis took us to the Seattle temple, where we performed baptisms for the dead.

Little-known facts about the Seattle Temple:

• The Seattle Moroni, seen above, is one of only five who holds a Book of Mormon in his hands.
• Dedicated by Spencer W. Kimball in 1980, this temple became the nineteenth operating temple and the first to have been built in the Pacific Northwest.
• Because it is situated near the Bellevue Airfield, the proposed height of the spire was reduced, and a red strobe warning light was installed at the base of the angel Moroni statue. When the airfield closed in 1983, the light was permanently shut off.
• The construction of the Seattle Washington Temple was opposed by various anti-Mormon groups. During the temple dedication, one group of women even chained themselves to the front gates as a demonstration of their opposition to the Church's position on the Equal Rights Amendment.
• The angel Moroni was shipped to Seattle in two halves on large semi-trucks. One of the halves was detained in one of Seattle's legendary traffic snarls, and the next day the papers ran pictures under the headline, "Angel delayed in traffic."

Photo credits: Laurie Patterson, Jackson Graham, Andy Griffith