June 17, 2015 - Wednesday - Carthage P-day

Today, we had our weekly training meeting in Nauvoo that mom and I attend each week.  We had the mayor of Nauvoo talk to us today about how the missionaries can help Nauvoo.  He is not a member of the Church and I am sure the PR department is trying to build some bridges.  He was very frank with us about how maybe 40% of the regular residents of Nauvoo are happy to have the Mormon influence in town and probably over 60% are not.  It was an interesting meeting.  (I think that the percentage of those wishing we were not here is probably a lot more).

There was not much consideration for the revenue that the Church brings into town, but rather how much it costs the local residents to have us here.  It was a pretty narrow presentation for sure, but it gave me some insights into the folks who would just like their sleepy town back.

Since today is our P-day, mom and I went to the Cultural Hall with Sister Curtis, after the training meeting, and rehearsed my new part as editor.  It looks like this will be our routine each week until I am ready to go on stage.  I felt better about the part as we broke it down and worked on individual segments of the part. I have my work cut out for me, for sure!!

We then went to Keokuk for our weekly grocery shopping and I stopped by the Verizon store and talked with the store manager about my phone.  It had stopped letting me download the pictures to my blog and after a few minutes, he figured out the problem!  Yea!!

I can now begin, again, to take and post pictures.  I am going back on this post and downloading some of my past pictures with the Sathre Family visit!  Here they are!

They have arrived!  We finally made it to the day their visit began and it is so fun to have them here!  It was such a pick up for mom and I to have them make this long trip to be with us!  We miss our family!

This is a living room full of precious family members!  It was so good to have them here and to have two days off to be with them!  It just happened to be a slower week at the Visitors Center so our fellow missionaries were able to cover for us.

 Here we are in the Visitors Center lounge room.  These precious grandchildren made a huge hit on the sister missionaries!

This is our front porch with some of our most valuable treasures smiling back at us!

Here is Mia with Sister Hansen. Mia is playing the grand piano in the Historic Carthage Visitors Center! Sister Hansen is an amazing piano and organ player.  She reminds me so much of Aunt Mary!  She helped each of the kids play a song on the piano while they were here.

Look at this precious audience sitting on the front row of the Visitor Center History room.  In this room we split up large youth groups and have half of them sing Hymns of the restoration while the other half sees the movie, "Impressions of a Prophet".  What a special spirit this brings to the youth groups and to the Visitors Center. 

Here we are getting ready for a drive to Nauvoo from Carthage and attending one of the plays Granny and Grandpa are in.  You can't possibly imagine how wonderful it was to play to and for our family...

Here we are getting ready for a wagon ride around Nauvoo.  This ride goes every half hour and tells the passengers all about the different sites to visit while they are here in Nauvoo.  That is Elder Heslop as the Teamster.  This is what Bishop Call use to do while he was here on his mission! 

Grandpa and Mia at the Pioneer Pastimes play area. Emma was learning how to do the tango on the stilts, with a little help from Grandpa!

 Now Emma is teaching Hayley the pioneer tango!

Look at these precious children in front of the Nauvoo Temple overlooking the Mississippi River. We took this picture right after our Sacrament Meeting on Sunday. 

This statue is a special tribute to Joseph and Hyrum as they were leaving Nauvoo on their way to Carthage on June 24, 1844.  Zac and Jackson took their places in front of the respective brothers according to age.  Zac is in front of Hyrum and Jackson is in front of Joseph.  They were both taught about the love Hyrum had for Joseph and the love that Joseph had for Hyrum.

This picture is taken through the bullet hole that killed Hyrum.  The door that this hole is in is the original door. The room has not changed much over the last 171 years.  It is the room where both Joseph and Hyrum occupied on June 26th and June 27th 1844.  There is such a special feeling of gratitude in that room. It is the location of the last expression of love that Joseph expressed for the Saints as he was martyred and where he sealed his testimony of the Gospel.  It is a wonderful and peaceful setting in this room.  That is the window Joseph fell out of on the afternoon of June 27th.

Now you can see how much we enjoyed our precious children coming to see us.  We love these visits and we so appreciate the sacrifice to come here.  It is sure a lot closer than the Philippines!!!