July 22, 2015 - Wednesday - P-day

It was a beautiful morning here in Carthage as mom and I were up and beginning our preparation day.  We look forward to our time together on these weekly P-days.  After our morning devotional and prayers here at home, we started off for Nauvoo.  Our weekly training meetings adjusted the start time by 15 minutes.  So we left a little earlier than usual and got to our meeting at about 7:25am.  Most of the missionaries got the new time down and the meeting did start right on time at 7:30am.  This is a picture of the beautiful clouds along our roadway to Quincy this morning!

Elder Kim Clark of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy spoke to us this morning and it was inspiring to hear him tell us about the power of prayer and how the Lord can work in our lives after all we can do ourselves to follow Him and the living Prophets.  We had a great meeting and we were off on our trip to Quincy by 8:45am.  

Our first stop was to have our first oil change for the Honda there in the Quincy dealership's service department.  We arrived about 45 minutes early, but they moved us right in for the service work.  We waited in the service lounge and we had a wonderful conversation with a man who was not a member of the Church.  He had received his education at Utah State University in Logan back in the early 70's.  He said he was not of our faith but really liked the values of the Mormons.  We spoke together for about 20 minutes and mom took the opportunity to invite him to come to Carthage and see us.  He said that he comes to the Kibbee Museum almost weekly from his home in Golden, Illinois, but has never come into the Historic Jail Visitors center.  Maybe, with this invitation, he will!

After the service appointment, mom and I went to Sam's for our monthly grocery shopping, here in Quincy, and then to Aldi's for some produce.  We then headed for home and some relaxing time before Rendezvous tonight.  We had a wonderful meal together and I got to bake a batch of cookies for our Young Performing Missionaries tomorrow.  By the time I got finished making the cookies, I was beyond ready for a nap!  I got an almost 3 hour nap this afternoon.  Boy did that feel good!

And then, for Rendezvous, our play went very well and I remembered all my lines!  Oh happy day when I don't mess up those lines.  I feel terrible when I do, but oh how sweet it is when I don't.... there must be a message there.... somewhere...

I got to talk with my sister tonight and my Aunt Toni.  I have missed that close association that families have when they live in the same city.  The phone calls and the fond memories of days past are connections to our family histories, but the personal visits and the warm hugs and conversations are always missed for me.