May 16, 2015 - Saturday

I was pretty much worn out after yesterday's activities, and it was hard to wake up this morning.   Mom was up early this morning and tried getting me up at 5:15am and I had to finally force myself to get up at 5:40am.  We had our morning devotional and then our exercise time.  By 6:50am,we were on our way for a brisk walk around Carthage.  When we got back to the house I was able to plant some flowers in our front porch containers and then have breakfast while mom was showering.  We got to the Visitors Center by 9:00am and had guests there within a few minutes.  

We had some interesting guests come to the Visitors Center today and I got to take some wonderful people on tours.  The couple pictured here were not members of the Church and she was not real happy to find out they were going to see a movie about Joseph Smith.  To my surprise, she and her husband stayed for the entire movie and then came with me on the tour of the jail.  

As I was teaching them about who Joseph was and the reason the members of the Church come to Carthage Jail, she visibly softened up and they both became very attentive to the discussion and presentation I gave them.  I shared my testimony with them in the martyrdom room after rehearsing to them the process that Joseph took from the time he entered the Sacred Grove up to the time he was martyred here in Carthage on June 27th, 1844. They were both moved by the experience and since they were from Joliet, Illinois, I invited them to come back again.  

My next set of visitors came walking up the brick walkway and they seemed like they were interested in a tour.  However, they just had a question for me.  They asked me where the 4:00pm "mass" would be.  Of course I let him know that the Church he was looking for was right behind the Visitors Center.  But I told him to come back sometime when he had an extra hour so that I could let him know about the history of this Carthage Jail!  I was even able to give his wife a portion of the 1st discussion while he attended to duties in the restroom.  Ah, good times!

Next we had Sunset practice tonight in Nauvoo.  I got some great pictures of mom fully engaged in the choreography of her dance steps with the other senior sister missionaries.  Have we indicated how much we "love" being on the stages of Nauvoo???  Especially when it interferes with mom's bedtime???  Watch for that "look" on mom's face.  That look and a plea from mom got us excused to head back to Carthage after only 2 hours of practice.  Most of the sisters wanted to stay even later!  Crazy ladies!!  Check out the pictures;

 And the final picture is another magnificent shot of the clouds we were driving toward as we went into Nauvoo tonight for the Sunset practice......