Fully Engaged

    The time here so far has been in preparation for the summer season. We will have lots of visitors come to enjoy what is here.  I have served in every site except a couple so far and will hit them this week. I love serving in every site and can't say that I have a favorite. Every site ties into a gospel message and a testimony of what the saints accomplished here. I do like to serve in the Family Living Center where I can demonstrate spinning, however. Darren is on the wagons driving the horses every day now. They take turns driving or giving the narration. He is really great at connecting with the people.  He also does the Oxen Ride.

 

 We also get the opportunity to serve in other ways such as planting flowers. Here we donated some time to plant the flowers at the end of Parley Street near the statue of Joseph and Brigham.  This week we will clean the statues in the women's garden.

   Everyone who serves here participates in the productions.  "Rendevous in Old Nauvoo" is put on every night but Sunday year round. It just inIt wcludes the senior missionaries and is delightful with song and a little dancing and a lot of acting.  We are in 3 numbers there. The other production that we are in is "Sunset on the Mississippi". This production is put on from Memorial Day through Aug. 15.  It stars the Young Performing Missionaries who are here for the summer  with the seniors as backup and a few numbers of our own.  There are 3 casts that rotate and perform 2 nights a week in each production, so we are in productions 4 nights a week during the summer.

     Once in while we get the chance to have some socialization and recreation. Saturday we went with our cast of the productions down to Hannibal, Missouri and took a dinner cruise on the Mark Twain Riverboat.  It was a beautiful evening and the sunset was gorgeous.

with Sister Finlinson

Some views of old Nauvoo

The peonies are beautiful at the Sarah Granger Kimball house.

Varieties I have never seen before

Our mission buddies, Elder and Sister Finlinson from Oak City, UT

Turtles like to sunbathe on logs in the Mississippi

Ready for our First Day

My first day was in the John Taylor Home. The weather was very rainy and we only gave one tour that day. Darren worked in the Tinshop. Not much practice but it was fun getting to know some of the Sisters and Elders in the mission.

We have three shifts, A, B, or C, each is about 6 hours and they rotate so there are two sisters serving at a time in each site. In the evening we are in Rendevous in old Nauvoo or Sunset on the Mississippi, two plays put on by senior missionaries. Each one is two nights per week and there are three casts so each one is put on every night of the week. Rendevous is year round and Sunset is only in the summer with the Young Performing Missionaries.

In our mission at last

We arrived in Nauvoo on April 21. Our travels were very good, driving to Rawlins, Wyoming the first night after leaving the MTC at 4:00. The next day we traveled to Omaha, Nebraska where we visited Wi#nter Quarters visitor center. It's a great little visitor center and a very nice missionary couple gave us a tour. The next morning we went to Kanesville (Council Bluffs).the church has avisitor center there also and a building there that replicates the one that was used when the first presidency was reorganized for the first time after the martyrdom. The same couple were there we had met the day before in Winter Quarters and gave us a tour of that  site. We drove on Thursday all the way to Keokuk which is just across the river from Nauvoo where we stayed that night. We planned to go to the temple in Nauvoo Friday morning since our appointment with the mission wasn't until 11:30, but we found our the temple was closed for cleaning and the sites didn't open until 10:00 so we just kind of wandered around for a couple of hours.

We found the house we had been assigned to. 

This is the William Mendenhall home that we will be living in for the coming months. 

It has a living room/kitchen on the main floor. The bedroom and bathroom are upstairs and the washer and dryer are in the basement. Small, but sufficient for our needs.

The view from our backdoor.

Catching up

       Due to technical difficulties I haven't been able to post pictures so here are a few.

Our call finally came.

We opened our call at our son Jotham's house. All the family joined via the internet.

Our car was LOADED!

Pointing out our mission on the legendary MTC world map.

Our district at the MTC

                                            We were truly uplifted.

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