March 2, 2015 - Monday

Our days do not slow down.  We were up this morning for our last orientation meeting with the mission presidency at 8:00am.  Mom went to the sewing room for some final measurements right after the training and then we went to our assigned sites by 9:45am.  Sister Lasher had the Lucy Mack Smith Home and shared the morning with double duty at the Wilford Woodruff Home.  I helped her get open this morning:

Monday Assignment for Mom!

Before dropping off Sister Lasher this morning we stopped by this wonderful building.  Can you tell what might possibly be picked up here?

Nauvoo Missionary Mail room!  

It was a short walk to the Lucy Mack Smith home from our apartment and I proceeded down the the Wainwright shop.  We had double duty with the Seventies Hall as well.  

This is where the Blacksmith is located along with the Wheelwright shop.  Here the Wainwright builds the wagon box and the steering mechanisms and the wheelwright builds the wheels, spokes and hubs for the wagon.  Pretty interesting process.  This was my first time here and the four Webb Brothers were the builders here that worked together.  In fact, Chancey Webb built the wagon that carried Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley.  Quite a vote of confidence from the Prophet!  And it was interesting to note that these talented craftsmen willingly followed the Prophet of God from their beloved Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley some 1500 miles away.  I will post some pictures of that facility on Wednesday when I return.

My duties there today included making souvenir horseshoes and prairie rings.  There was an interesting origin to "prairie rings".  The story goes that there were three young men who wanted to marry a young lady on the trek to the Rocky Mountains.  They each asked the father for her hand in marriage and he told them that the first one who gave her a diamond ring would have his blessing.  Well, diamond rings were unheard of on the trek so two of the young men dropped their efforts to court her.  The other one became very creative... he took a horseshoe nail and bent it to form a ring and took it to the father and asked for her hand.  The one thing that got him the OK from the father is that the horseshoe nails were manufactured by the "Diamond"  Company.  He got the nod to married the fathers daughter, and invented the "Prairie Diamond".  I made up 500 of these today.  Every visitor to the Webb Blacksmith shop will get one of these pictured below:

The horseshoe nail and the finished product!

The process of making a Prairie Ring!

In the top picture I have two rings that I made today.  The somewhat flat ring was my first attempt, and the better one was the result of practice!  Then in the lower picture, you will see the vice that holds the nail and the arm that pivots about 240 degrees and perfectly bends the nail into a round ring.  I set up an assembly line of nails facing the correct way, and bent them in a sequence that I was able to time at 8 seconds per ring.  Hey, what else are you going to do in the process of bending 500 nails??

Then I met Sister Lasher at the Blacksmiths shop.  She got done with her site before I did and I got to show her how to make these rings and how to make a souvenir horseshoe.  I will take some pictures of the horseshoe making process on Wednesday. 

We were invited to dinner at Sister Olson's home tonight with four other couples.  Sister Olson is on her 4th mission.  She will turn 83 here in March.  She plays the piano, performs in the Rendezvous Play and will be a part of the summer Sunset Program.  She has outlived two husbands and has decided not to "idle" her life away.  What an example!  

Quick story; she was in a Rendezvous Play this past summer.  In front of the stage there were beautiful flower vases, huge floor vases.  As she was picking some of the flowers as part of the skit, she tripped on her dress and fell to the floor and dropped all her flowers.  Of course they scrambled to make sure she was alright as they picked her up off the floor and set her down on the front row bench.  One of the men had gathered up her dropped flowers and having found out she was OK, he absentmindedly handed her the flowers.  But she was quick to say, "that is the first time someone has given me flowers for a bungled performance"!  Typical of who we get to work with here!

And finally, we ended our day with a 6:30pm practice for our summer play "Sunset".  This is where those lucky enough to come to Nauvoo for the performances will get to see me dance....  right step, shuffle, left step, shuffle, giddy up one, giddy-up two, bounce one, bounce two, bounce three, bounce four, pivot right, Turn! ... and repeat....  that's all you get right now!!!

Somehow this was called a "mission".  Most of us refer to it as "enduring senior performers".  Should be interesting... should be interesting.  Anyways, check out the you tube video "A place in the Choir by Celtic Thunder".  Add a touch of Nauvoo imagery in your mind, sprinkled with senior missionaries, to suit your taste!

Thank you for joining me tonight!