June 18, 2015 - Thursday in Carthage

Today was a day without rain!  The entire day was overcast and cloudy, but no rain came down.  That made for a very nice day.  For our Sunset performance tonight in Nauvoo, we had a very cool and almost humidity free evening and that was wonderful!

Our day began with our morning devotional and prayer.  Mom and I had time for our 3 mile walk around town and it was a beautiful morning.  It was a lot more humid this morning for sure.  We had our first scheduled tour at 8:45am, and this morning was very busy!  The first group of 40 came a few minutes late, and our second group of 60 came about 15 minutes later.  After efficiently getting the first group started, the second group comes in and the leader announces he needs to be done by 10:00am.  That was about 9:10am that he announced that.  The tour would normally take 45 minutes if we could have started it right then, but that wasn't possible.  So, needless to say, we had our work cut out for us as a result of a poorly planning tour guide!

The first group went fairly smoothly until they got to the martyrdom room.  There, they decided to sing the song "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief".  The site missionary did not know how to say no to this group.  As a result, it put our second group back about another 20 minutes, and the tour guide who could not plan very well, got pretty anxious and told the first group to "hurry up".  Well, the Spirit has a hard time under these circumstances.  As a result, I gave direct training on how and when to say no to these kinds of requests to sing with groups following close by.  It shouldn't happen again.

We had over 600 guests today and except for the start-up this morning, things went pretty smooth.  I had our first group from Scotland this afternoon.  I love the accent!  As I got to speak with the son of this family, I found out he had just been released from his mission to the France, Paris Mission.  I spent a little time talking with him and found out he was Tyler Martin's trainer!  I had to take a picture!  This is Elder Mckechnie with his sister and his mom and dad.  Brother Mckechnie was Elder Skidmore's, (one of the site missionaries here in Carthage), Bishop when he first lived in Scotland with his wife about 30 years ago!

Of course I had to ask Elder Mckechnie to tell me about Elder Martin and his work as a missionary.  He said he was able to spend six weeks in training with him and was amazed at how quickly Tyler had picked up French.  He said Tyler was a good cook and loved the French cuisine.   I then asked him to tell me something about Tyler that no one else knew.... he came up with a story fairly quickly.  It seems that Tyler was sending him off, at transfer time, on the train along with some other missionaries when the train started to take off.  It was reported that Tyler pulled the emergency brake and stopped the train to get off.......Tyler - how close to the truth is that???

Yes it is definitely a small world and it just seems to keep getting smaller.  Those who know Tyler, please pass this on!

Our Sunset play was in front of about 100 people and the weather was simply perfect.  There was a cool breeze and overcast.  Not bad for a mid June performance!  I found out that the Young Performing Missionary who is my "Jimmie" was hurt falling off a stage last evening.  Apparently he sprained his ankle. He wasn't on stage tonight but I did see him in the back of the audience.  However, I did not get to talk with him.  Let see what happens tomorrow night!

This brother came into the Visitors Center this afternoon with his wife.  They had taken a tour and came back to tell us about his life's work.  He is a recording artist and reminded me so much of Brother Kenny.  He has recorded some albums and wanted to give each missionary a CD of his work as an expression of appreciation for our service.  I had him play the piano in the Visitors Center and he was amazing!  He is Benn Cole and he gave us two of his albums.  His latest one is "A Blessing of Promise", and his other album is, "Peace Before the Storm".

We sure have a great variety of experiences here in Carthage.  I had the Mission President come out today and he reviewed with me our procedures for giving tours and laid out the plans for the June 27th commemoration.  He seemed very pleased with what was going on here in Carthage.  

He indicated that he would be transferring some of the young sister missionaries on July 4th, and he got my ideas on that subject.  I told him that the missionaries were well trained and ready for the big July crowds and that moving trained missionaries would place a great deal of pressure on us to train and recover our preparations.... but, I ended with our willingness to be obedient to his direction.... there must be an opposition in all things... including our preparations that have been refined and strengthened over the last 6 weeks...

Like I always say, we are glad to be here and to be a part of this marvelous work!  Thanks for checking in with us tonight!