Our first full week

         We have been here in Nauvoo a week with most of the time in orientation. We have had several meetings with President Hall and his counselors. There seems to be a gentle unfolding and answering of questions about our service here in Nauvoo. It's all tied meaningfully to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Great care is taken by the leaders, the Presidency, the zone leaders and the district leaders in teaching us to bring souls unto Christ. All of the senior missionaries have been so welcoming. To watch these older brothers and sisters, bald and wrinkled, limping yet smiling with friendly hearts, having their  testimonies shining  through their countenances is an inspiration. Sister Hatch served in the John Taylor home and Elder Hatch served  in the Tinsmith shop for our first day in the sites. We had opportunity to teach several small groups that visited today. It has been very cold and rainy and we have not had very many visitors.
         We received our cast assignments today. There are two plays  that  we will be in, performing each show twice per week. There will be dialog to learn plus a lot of singing and dancing. It is absolutely amazing to us that all these old people, including ourselves, are actually doing this, but it is also absolutely delightful. We are excited that our MTC friends, the Finlinsons, are in our cast.
           We take our lunches with us and some evenings we have limited time for our evening meal, but tonight we were home from practice by eight o'clock. A week from Monday Darren will begin driving horses. Most days the teamsters have been getting very wet.
           Sundays begin with Sacrament Meeting at 7:50. After the block we eat dinner, then serve in the sites from 12 to 5. There are no wagon rides that day and couples serve together in the sites which is one of the few times we can serve together. Sunday evenings we have zone meetings or devotionals usually.

Love the MTC

     We have spent a wonderful week at the MTC. The spirit here is amazing. There's 12couples here going to Nauvoo and they are all wonderful people. I have learned so much just from them. It feels like we're family already. We were divided into districts with 4 couples in each. We had the Nebletts (Nauvoo), the Chadwells (Oakland visitor center), and the Dees (Hawaii).  Our teachers were young BYU students, but despite their youth, they were very prepared and did a great job. We were taught how to teach and practiced first on each other and then on a volunteer that came here for that purpose.
    One thing that was neat was that we were assigned another couple the first day to get to know. They are the Finlinsons from Oak City, Utah and they are going to Nauvoo as well. We felt an immediate kinship with them. He is a teamster also, and this is their second mission. Looking forward to serving with them.

Called to serve

We were so excited to receive our call to serve in Nauvoo. Five years ago the mission president from Nauvoo called us to invite us to turn our papers in and serve there as teamsters. We regretfully couldn't do so as Darren  couldn't retire at that time. As time for him to retire loomed at the end of last year, we took a trip to Nauvoo to see if that was something we would like to do and could do. We visited with one of the teamsters there and told him about the previous contact with Nauvoo. He became excited and immediately took us to visit with the member of the mission presidency who was over the teamsters. He explained what was required and advised us to pray about it and  go ahead and turn our papers in. We attended a session in the Nauvoo Temple with that question on our minds and we both came away feeling that we should get ready and go. Soon after we arrived home we met with the Bishop and started things rolling. There were several health challenges we had to  find solutions for as well as what to do with our animals and house. We were blessed to have our daughter Melanie and husband Jed offer to move into our house, and Jotham offer to take care of our horses.  By the time we got those things ironed out we got the last teamster spot in the mission.  We feel so blessed to be able to serve the Lord as missionaries in the Nauvoo, Illinois Mission.

We recieved our call December 10, 2016 and were to report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah April 10, 2017.