April 18, 2015 - Saturday

This day began as a normal promising day for us.  We started our morning with our devotional and our exercise.  We got our work done in cleaning the jail this morning and took a nice walk through the town of Carthage.  What is really neat is that people are beginning to wave at us as we walk by their homes or they pass us in their cars, or they are working on re shingling a house and they wave to us from 3 stories up! 

Here is a couple of pictures of some trees in the neighborhood.  One got the message that Spring was here, and the other one has not!

What Spring?

"I'm all about blooming where I am planted!"  "Spring has sprung!"

We had guests arriving at the Visitors Center bright and early again today.  We are always happy to accommodate them!  You just never know who you will meet......

So you might be interested in asking us a question like; "who did you meet today at the Visitors Center in Carthage?"  Well, we would answer that we met this young couple pictured below;

This is Jason and Kristen Scott.  They are on a vacation from Fresno, California.  Jason is in the Elders Quorum Presidency with Sean Romannace, my nephew and the oldest son of my sister, Jackie.  Jason and Kristen also are well acquainted with John and Barbara Godfrey.  John was in an Elders Quorum Presidency with me in the late 1980's in Fremont, California, and has since served twice as a Bishop in Fresno, California.  He was Bishop of a family ward my brother Doug attended, and the Bishop of a Young Single Adult Ward in which Sean and Jason and Kristen attended.  

Jason and Kristen are such a wonderful couple and they were easy picks for the blog today! 

We had a great time on our tours today.  We had a new senior missionary couple serving with us today for the 2nd time and they are doing great.  We had a ward from Kansas City here to attend the Nauvoo Temple for youth baptisms and then they stopped by Carthage for the tour and special experience.  I had the sweet opportunity to testify to them about the importance of standing for truth and righteousness even if you have to stand alone.  

My reference is, of course, to all those mob members who knew their decision was wrong to participate in the murder of Joseph and Hyrum, and had to live with that consequence the rest of their lives, and those potential mob members who saw that this effort was an unrighteous cause and they walked away from any involvement.  The balance of their lives were blessed exceedingly just because of this one decision!

I love testifying to the young people!!  They are the future of the Church!

Then we had our Rendezvous Play tonight and, with the swelling crowds, we had two performances.  Several visitors from Carthage yesterday and today were in attendance and they were a very good audience!  We enjoyed the two shows and then headed home about 9:15pm.  During our performances we had hard rain and loud thunder and bright lightening, but the show had to go on!  When we got home to Carthage, all the streets were dry and Carthage avoided any rain.  Go figure!

We are grateful to be safe here at home and preparing for the Holy Sabbath Day tomorrow.  And!  We have the day off after our Church services!!  Yea!

Thank you for checking in tonight!  There is never a dull moment here in the Nauvoo Mission field!