We had a light rain falling this morning that shortened our morning walk but did not dampen our Spirits. We had a longer morning preparation time since we are on the expanded summer schedule. We were scheduled to be at the Visitors Center at 11:30am so it was a nice leisurely morning. We had our morning devotional after I slept in until 6:15am. What a lazy guy, but oh did that feel good after a long night last night that got me to bed at 11:15pm...
Since we can see the cars coming into the Visitors Center from our back door, we could see that we were pretty steady today. However, we had everyone scheduled today and this gave us some additional time to train and make community contacts. We had the Heningers take some flyers around town and they were very successful in making some inroads to the local businesses. The Hardee's fast food restaurant, (Carl's Jr in California), gave us some discount coupons. The Ben Franklin pleaded with the Heningers to send buses over to their store so they could get their Carthage souvenirs, and our friends at the Kibbe museum right across the street from us had several of our guests go and visit after our tours. I even sent the sister missionaries over, two at a time, to get acquainted with the folks at the museum, and take the tour. We made some great contacts today.
Then our BYU-Idaho tour group arrived and we had 39 of the best students come for the tour. The first thing I had them do was assemble in the history room and discovered they had several piano players where they sang hymns of praise about Joseph Smith. That was a special few minutes as we waited for the movie room to become available. Then we got to show them the movie, "Impressions of a Prophet", and then we divided them up into two smaller groups and gave them a nice tour of the jail.
The tour group leader is their professor as well as their Stake President and when he asked me about a place to have a short presentation, that was prepared by one of the students, after the tours were completed, I suggested the Martyrdom room. He was thinking somewhere on the Visitor Center grounds, but since we had no pending tours, it was such a special treat for them to have the access to that room. I also had the young sister missionaries accompany them, as Carthage missionaries, and for the choice experience with their peers. Things worked out very well.
They were all very gracious and thankful for the special treatment, but the Spirit managed this group. It was such a pleasure to have them experience the movie, the hymn singing, the jail experience, and then their own prepared program in a setting that is so special to Church members everywhere.
And then, mom had a special family tour on our last tour of the day. You could just see on their faces that they loved the Gospel and were living it. They moved from Utah to Iowa about 6 years ago because of an impression the father had to move out into the mission field. They have had influence on so many people with their 10 children and they brought with them a young sister whom their daughters have befriended and who joined the Church less than a year ago.
They have a son on a mission and a daughter preparing to submit paperwork for a mission. He has served as a Branch president and is now in the Stake Presidency. Their 5th child was married in the Nauvoo Temple this morning and they made this their last stop as they were heading home tonight.
It is experiences like these that strengthen my testimony as to why we are out serving this mission. We have met so many wonderful people and every day is a tender mercy for us to have the privilege of serving here in Carthage.
Then our BYU-Idaho tour group arrived and we had 39 of the best students come for the tour. The first thing I had them do was assemble in the history room and discovered they had several piano players where they sang hymns of praise about Joseph Smith. That was a special few minutes as we waited for the movie room to become available. Then we got to show them the movie, "Impressions of a Prophet", and then we divided them up into two smaller groups and gave them a nice tour of the jail.
The tour group leader is their professor as well as their Stake President and when he asked me about a place to have a short presentation, that was prepared by one of the students, after the tours were completed, I suggested the Martyrdom room. He was thinking somewhere on the Visitor Center grounds, but since we had no pending tours, it was such a special treat for them to have the access to that room. I also had the young sister missionaries accompany them, as Carthage missionaries, and for the choice experience with their peers. Things worked out very well.
They were all very gracious and thankful for the special treatment, but the Spirit managed this group. It was such a pleasure to have them experience the movie, the hymn singing, the jail experience, and then their own prepared program in a setting that is so special to Church members everywhere.
And then, mom had a special family tour on our last tour of the day. You could just see on their faces that they loved the Gospel and were living it. They moved from Utah to Iowa about 6 years ago because of an impression the father had to move out into the mission field. They have had influence on so many people with their 10 children and they brought with them a young sister whom their daughters have befriended and who joined the Church less than a year ago.
They have a son on a mission and a daughter preparing to submit paperwork for a mission. He has served as a Branch president and is now in the Stake Presidency. Their 5th child was married in the Nauvoo Temple this morning and they made this their last stop as they were heading home tonight.
It is experiences like these that strengthen my testimony as to why we are out serving this mission. We have met so many wonderful people and every day is a tender mercy for us to have the privilege of serving here in Carthage.
Sounds like a very uplifting day! So awesome!
ReplyDelete