Most Reverent

Having Laryngitis the last few days in Nauvoo has made things interesting to say the least!  It started Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning a whisper is all that was coming out.  I know they are short on having enough missionaries in the sites, so I just asked to switch to a home that had less visitors.  No problem!  I still ended up helping with a couple of tours and giving about four.  It was funny, I used hand gestures and spoke very softly, the tour in turn was whispering back to me when they had comments or questions.  Amazing what we express with the tone of our voice.  The tours were great.  Nothing wrong with lowering our voices for sure.
Thursday was harder when I got sent to Family Living Center, figured I would just be able to do the counting, but we had tremendous numbers of guests coming in, especially when it began to rain outside.  I ended up doing tours on spinning and weaving by using some sign language, demonstrating and pointing to a couple of signs.  The groups were so sweet, appreciative and helpful.  We just keep smiling away!
Today is our prep day and so I am able to give it a rest, poor Elder Spradlin - he keeps trying to ask me questions, and not getting much answer from me!  Lemon, Honey, Ginger and cayenne all make for good friends and soon I will be back up to full speed.  Grateful that laryngitis didn't stop us from being able to go to the temple!
Tuesday morning I had a question on my heart, and I wanted understanding.  I felt that if I asked, the Lord would send me the answers I needed. The name of a specific sister came to my mind, when I went to my site, that was the Sister I ended up working with, and I had only been with her one other time in the last two months.  She did have what I needed to hear, in fact it was super neat as she shared with me stories of her ancestors and what they had written in their journals while they were here in Nauvoo. In the afternoon a Sister I had not seen in years showed up on my site and as we bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel and the importance of holding on to the truths the Gospel brings we were both strengthened.  My question of the morning led to me being in the frame of mind to hear the needs of my sister in the afternoon.  Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers.  He knows our needs and wants us to reach out to Him, but we have to be ready to Reach and to grow.
Wednesday morning for our Mission Training meeting They had the Core Cast from the pageant come in and do two of the Vignettes, One of them was on the missionaries who left to go teach the Gospel in England from here and the other was the King Follet sermon given by Joseph Smith.  Then they sang.  It was amazing, feel so blessed by all of the opportunities we have here.
Lehi's Dream showed a terrible darkness covering the Earth, we have that today in so many ways with the confusion, chaos, strife around us.  We must do as he admonished by holding tight to the Rod and not ever losing our focus on  the Plan our Heavenly Father has given.  It is all about change and growth but by the pattern we have been given in the Plan of Salvation.

Keeping focus

This amazing photo that Jaci took last week typifies to me a lot of Nauvoo.  We look back at the people who lived here in Nauvoo and we talk about the sacrifices they made and dedication that  they had.  The history in itself is interesting, but how we look at, assimilate and apply the information is what is important.  Learning from history, means applying the information to ourselves.

FOCUS:   I see her focused in this picture.  The saints were focused on the Temple, their covenants with God, family, living the Gospel and following the Prophet.  We need to keep our focus and not let the trials and distractions of the world sidetrack us.  The problems of today are different, but without the focus we will be lost in the process.

TREASURING.  She is treasuring and caring for the stuffed animal, the same as we need to cherish and care for all of those around us.

In each site I learn more,  the families who lost their children -with an infancy death rate of 40%  most lives here had were touched with loss and grief.  The knowledge that families will be together forever and that this earth life is just a step helps us recognize the hope and joy in being together again, although we still grieve and sorrow here.

I pull weeds in some of the yards, sometimes as an assignment.  Makes me contemplate the pernicious things like Dandelions which in the garden are a weed, but some people harvest them to eat.  We need to take care with what we are nourishing or yanking out of our lives.  Some of those weeds take a lot of effort to get pulled out, just like the flowers take a lot of nurturing to survive.  Making sure we have our focus on Heavenly Father and his plan helps us to more easily recognize the good from the bad in our lives.  We also have to be continually ready to repent and change in order to keep our lives ready.

The early Saints had the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a Prophet and twelve Apostles.  Being human they made mistakes just like we do, but they treasured the Gospel and their covenants with God..  We also today have a Prophet and 12 apostles on the earth that testify of Jesus Christ and we likewise need to follow them and hold the Gospel dear.   

What day is it???

The days and weeks seem to all go into a big blur.  But having visits like these make it even better!

Today I worked in the gardens at the Lucy Mack Smith home.  Neat how much fun even weed pulling can be with a group of four women working together, with sounds of the pageant practice in the background and then the band coming around a couple of times and playing.  There are so many little things that happen on a daily basis to make this a very special place. Each person here is  very different, and each has their own gift or talent that they share which helps to make Nauvoo what it is. 

We have people coming from all over the world to our sites and to see the pageant, Taiwan, Canada, Tahiti, Samoa, Vietnam, to name a few.  What a great opportunity we have to visit people from all over.  Come see us!!!

Pageant, Rendezvous, Sunset on the Mississippi, Sites and schedules changing  every day, Wednesday morning meetings.  Preparation day definitely being a day to TRY to prepare and catch up!  Crazy busy, but loving it!  I even got to go on a one mile handcart trek last week with Lorrie, Danny and their families!

overachievers, family and fourth of July

This one could have so many names!  but it is dedicated to the dedicated missionaries here in Nauvoo!  This  can become humorous, like this past week when our cast had Rendezvous.  Missionaries have started bringing refreshments to eat in the green room during performances because many don't get a chance to get home and eat between site duty and the performances.  I had it worked out with some of the sisters that she and I would bring food this past time and told the sister who is in charge of that kind of for the cast.  I wanted to make sure I had enough, so did a lot, and showed up with it.  As I was going in I saw another sister bringing in some cupcakes, then the sister I was doing it with of course brought hers and she also did a lot.  Later a brother showed up with some cookies he had made, then there was a birthday and another sister brought a whole bunch of food because of that.  It got to being hilarious how much food showed up! Talk about a funny lack of communication, or miscommuniation!   Most of mine, except the fruit salad was freezable so I took it out to the car to take home and freeze.  It was pretty awesome that we all cared that much, I got surprised and tickled though when one of the sisters was afraid I was going to have my feelings hurt because of it.  My thought was that only someplace like Nauvoo would you have so many wanting to help so much.
There are many examples like this but I think one of the most amazing is a sister who works in the mail room.  Her work doesn't take very long, so she gets up early in the mornings unassigned and goes around looking for weeds that need pulled, or things that need done before she starts her assignment. Caught her this morning when we were out for our early morning walk, she was out pulling weeds by some flower pots on Main Street.  It was awesome having the time to stop and help, just for the joy of making things better.

Jessica and Bill were able to come visit us last weekend and it was so great having family in town.  We were able to give them tours in the sites we were working in and spend some time with them when we weren't "on duty"  They got to come watch Rendezvous, we agreed with them when they said it was kind of overacted.... What do you expect from us old geezers!
Jessica brought me my new dulcimer that David found for me at an estate sale last week so am now working hard to get better!
Fourth of July they had a 7:00am flag raising before we had to go on site.  Loved the bagpipes!