April 2, 2015 - Thursday

We got a great start on the day by having our morning devotional and prayers before 6:00am.  We then took a wonderful walk around the town of Carthage.  It had rained last night and early this morning, but we hit a point of fresh, clean, and dry air.  The walk was invigorating!

We, again, had visitor's come early to Carthage this morning and had a group of 22 by 9:30am.  We normally are scheduled to open at 10:00am.  So, we opened early and got our first tour started.  This was a great group from all over the United States.  We had this one couple join the tour just as Mom was beginning her presentation.  I quickly asked where they were from and they are actually serving in Chicago on a mission that they recently began.  I invited them to join the tour just in progress.

Here is a picture of them and a little more explanation;

They were our twins.  They had just entered the mission field as medical missionaries and had the same exact feelings that mom had in the Philippines.  They had approached their mission president about the "uneasy" feelings they were having about being medical missionaries, and after fasting, the Mission President suggested they take some time to visit historic sites in Illinois.  During this very tender time of realizing something was not quite right in their field of labor, they ventured out to Nauvoo for some history experiences.  Mom could have not gotten this tour, or she could have been sick with nearly half the mission ill, or they could have come on our day off, but no, they needed to come today and have mom give the tour.  She was shedding tears of happiness having found some relief over the feelings she had of not being able to stay in this assigned mission.  

It was a sweet tender mercy for them to connect with mom, and for mom to be able to share some very tender experiences of our own.  This was exactly what they needed and they took our information and will let us know where they get reassigned.  I might also add that we were privileged to have this opportunity today as well!  Oh, how Heavenly Father works for us to have these precious experiences!

Here are some other pictures that went along with the tours we gave today.  Sister Lasher is starting the film, "Impressions of a Prophet", in the top picture, and then leading the tour into the jail area.  This wooden structure is the "summer kitchen" where the meals were prepared during the extremely hot summer months.  It was added on to the jail in 1850, and the summer kitchens were very popular in the area during the mid 1800's.

We have our monthly mission breakfast tomorrow morning and we need to be in Nauvoo by 6:45am.  This is the meeting where those missionaries who going home will get to give one last performance of their choosing.  Some sing, and some dance, and some do some kind of act, but it is all in fun and usually very emotional and hilarious at the same time!

Our visitors today came from California, Utah, Idaho, London, Washington, Ohio, Missouri, and Mexico to name most of them!

Have a great night and thank you for reading and commenting on our blog!  We love you!