Another Temple In Boise

Wow well first and foremost... WE ARE GETTING ANOTHER TEMPLE IN OUR MISSION!!!! It will be in Meridian which is where i spent most of my mission and it is only 5 min. from the Boise Temple! Crazy! We are becoming like Utah! Nah but what an exciting piece of news! We were watching Conference and i was already stoked to hear about the Laie Temple re dedication but then President Monson announced the Meridian Idaho temple and we all leaped in the air with joy! It is truly amazing how many members there are out here and it shows by having another temple in our mission! When Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Twelve came he hinted to us that this could happen! He said "We are only scratching the surface here in Idaho!" He counseled us to write in our journals how many temples and church buildings there were now so in 10 years we could look back and see the amazing growth of the church in so short of a time! We here as the missionaries take this very personal! This is and amazing amount of faith that the Brethren have in us to place, in the next town, yet another temple! We feel it our duty to go and do, so we can fill the temple! Those who we baptise today and in the near future will be the ones to "FILL" it so we know we will find success if we place our faith and are united in Christ! I wish you could all feel the spirit in this great state right now! We are full aware that this will bring about the greatest blessings in the near future, but as already realized, it will also bring about the most persecution and hate that we have ever before seen here! The Adversary isfully aware of this monumental event about to take place and he is hard at work! The news all over Idaho and news papers everywhere hopped all over this one and it even made it to the 6:00 news on every channel! Truly the prophecy that Joseph Smith had that "his name would be had for good and evil" has come true! People everywhere are talking both good and bad and we are sooo excited for this! THE FIRE IS BURNING! We made up a new campaign we wanna start as Elders for all the Temple endowed members with out recommends! Its called "The Temple is coming,... Are You?" Campaign! hahaha Nah just joking but we for real are so pumped! Just to give you a taste of what is happening here, We went to Costco after the Sat. morning session to get an Elders prescription filled for him and we were mobbed by members everywhere at the most packed time Costco has ever seen! The members were flocking to us to express excitement and to just let off some joy that was building in there heart, (ohby the way this Costco is in Meridian where the Temple will be) and it was crazyness! Anyway, all we wanted was his prescription but we could not even get through to the other side of the store cause we were stopped by a crowd of excited members! This is not an exaggeration to the least bit! I guess every Mormon goes to Costco in between sessions on sat. to stock up for Sundays lunch! It was nutts, but again, long story short... The Manager came through the crowd of members and said with a loud voice that we were not allowed to "Preach in his store" We assured him we were "doing none of that" and he said there were complaints against us because we were holding up lines and trying to "preach" to people! We told him again we were only trying to get some medicine for a sick missionary but others in the store were coming up to us. He said that will be fine as long as we just do not go up to people in the store... They have to approach us. We then asked him if he knew anyone who needed help or could use a message of hope and he said "NO. Have a good day." HAHAHAHA ! How fun it was to see how the work here will explode if we can kindle this spark and use the members to add "fuel to the fire"! The work will go forth boldly, nobly and independent! NO unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing! We got to watch General Conference with some Friends that are investigating the church and a great member family in Nampa and also we watched one session with President Cannon and Sister Cannon and their daughter Megan and her new born son Elliot! They fed us a ono lunch then we watched it all together! I wonder if I would be able to take a few years off then come back and serve another mission in Boise when the temple is about to be completed! I cant imagine the work here at that point! Anyway, I love this gospel sooo much! I am so Grateful for a Prophet and so many inspired leaders (Male and Female) that spoke and enlightened us this past weekend for 10 hours! I could have listened for another 20 hours if they could have kept talking! hahaha... No but I do love you all and I'm grateful that we will all be able to read and re-read all the wonderful talks in the Ensign next month! What a blessing! I hope you all have a great week!

-Elder Runnels