Reno- Day 4 - The Blessings of Going to Church

We got up early to get ready to go to church. When we planned this trip it was important to me to have the girls go to church in Reno. I wanted them to see that the church is EVERYWHERE in the world. I really was looking forward to going to church, for a few reasons...(1) to get out of that nasty hotel, (2) to see what church was like in Reno and (3) for spiritual enlightenment.

We got all ready, called a taxi and made the trek to church. The streets were quite snowy, but still driveable...or at least our taxi driver thought so. When we got to the church the sidewalks were very nicely shoveled...but it didn't look like anyone was there. Gian got out of the taxi and went to look to see if anyone was there. He "happened" to find a door unlocked, walked the entire church and found NO ONE, NOT ONE SOUL! But, we stayed hopeful, paid the taxi driver and went inside to get warm. We found a tithing envelope, called the Bishop on the envelope and asked what was going on. Apparently they had CANCELLED church! WHAT? CANCELLED church?? Too much snow, was what we were told. Hey, we made it just fine.

Meanwhile a man from the afternoon ward showed up to do some work in the clerk's office. He was so kind to us and instantly fell in love with the girls, showing them all around the church building and giving them a little object lesson on following the Light of Christ. Brother Turner offered to take us back to the hotel (which took 2 trips since his car was too small for all of us).

As he drove us back we got talking and the next thing I know he is offering to take us to a fun sports store called SCHEELS. We took him up on the offer. He went home to get his wife, change clothes and gather some snacks for us. He picked us up and off we went on the most amazing store ever!!

Before we went to Scheels, Brother Turner made a detour to show us these awesome snow sculptures. I knew we were in for a fun day when Brother Turner ran and dove into this igloo!! What a fun guy! We also had a pretty fun snowball fight too.

Next stop, Scheels. I can not even begin to tell you how amazing this store was. It is a sporting goods store, with every thing you need for every sport ever imagined...and a home decorating section, a fudge counter with yummy yummy fudge, two fish tanks (fresh water and salt water) and a full ferris wheel!! This was a HUGE store.

These bigger than life statues were outside the building.

One of the fish tanks.

The ferris wheel.

All the Presidents of the United States were displayed on the second floor. You could walk up to each one and part of a speech from that President would play.

There was a shooting range...which the girls were WAY TOO GOOD AT!

There was a mountain with some animals (that were alive and are now stuffed).

There was a simulation station for baseball, golf, soccer and football.

There was also a NASCAR simulator. I highly regret that Gian didn't get to do that! Sorry honey...next time.

And finally a ride on the ferris wheel.

After 2+ hours at Scheels, we decided it was time to eat. So off to the local buffet...which was delish!

(No, Tabitha didn't eat that. But I just loved how Brother Turner made everything a learning experience for the girls!)

And then a few photos.

Brother and Sister Turner were a DEFINATE blessing to us that day. Especially me. Just the night before I had "hit a wall" with this trip...exhausted, JO's were over, tired of dealing with Tabitha's grumpiness, tired of smokey gross hotels, tired of tredding through snow AND on top of all that I found out that Charlee was sick with the stomach flu. I prayed hard Saturday night to have a pleasent time at church and to have my soul filled back up. And even though we didn't get to go to church services...we were blessed by meeting these extraordinary people. I will never forget what they did for us that day...and I can only hope to pay it forward to someone else sometime!