Elders McIntyre & Burgoyne nearing completing of their 'masterpiece'

It has been a fun day; it is rare to have a free Saturday!  This morning we went down to "Paint Louis" and later met up with George's 1st cousin and his wife who live nearby in O'Fallon, Missouri.  We have an artist missionary who was accepted to paint along the flood wall of the Mississippi near downtown St Louis.  The Elders were finishing up their second day of painting the best scene of the entire mile and a half stretch.  Graffiti artists from across the nation come here to paint every year.  The men next to the missionaries were from the Netherlands.

One of the colorful graffiti scenes from Paint Louis

One young man from Chicago was having an artistic block.  He said normally the art he creates is illegal and he doesn't have time to think out his designs.  By the time we left, he had some beautiful colors working in his favor.

Typical of the scene along the stretch of the river wall today

Later we went to "The Hill", a long-established Italian-American neighborhood with lots of family owned eateries and beautiful refurbished homes.  Yes, we ate Italian for lunch (with enough leftovers for a couple of days) and then went to an Italian Bakery where customers were lined up waiting to buy treats.  I bought an apple strudel right out of the oven.  We will check it out tomorrow.

Nice free style drawings with paint cans

Okay, we do work weekdays in the office.  There are always opportunities with health, apartments and vehicles.  Friday afternoon we did apartment inspections.  The apartments we visited. . .were great. We are so fortunate to work with wonderful young Missionaries.

Sister Slagle & Mower at the service entrance of the Temple

We did help with cleaning the Temple earlier in the week (it is closed for deep cleaning) and we did deep cleaning.  Last time we cleaned crystals; this time we scrubbed walls, toilets and upholstery.  We were beat.

Small, but powerful Primary program

Since I'm going in reverse order here; we also had a delightful Primary program on Sunday.  The Primary is very small, and the children each took many turns reciting their parts on Choosing the Right.  Primary programs are always great.  When we called our children later on Sunday, they shared their parts they had given in their ward.

Elders add mormon.org to help complete the picture