July 9, 2015 - Thursday in Carthage

Mom and I were up early this morning to be at the Visitors Center by 7:30am.  We had all of our Carthage Missionaries scheduled today, and we will found out that our preparations were acceptable to the Lord by the way we were blessed in handling such a large group of visitors over an eleven hour period.

This was the busiest scheduled day of the year 2015, for Historic Carthage Jail visitors.  We have been looking forward to this day and preparing for it for over 4 months.  I had to take this picture of the parking lot from our back door of the house we are in at 7:30am this morning:

Then, at about 10:00am this morning here is the same view from the back window:

We had a total of 17 buses come today.  Of those 17, 14 were scheduled previously and 3 came unexpectedly.  However, it was very manageable and we were able to count, at the close of the Visitors Center tonight at 7:00pm, 1710 guests.  Here are a few of the many stories we had today;

I took the charge to greet every visitor coming in today.  That means I was out in the courtyard greeting the groups as they came in.  At one point I had three bus loads come in at the same time!  But they were all very well prepared.  This group of three buses had around 165 youth and leaders from Missouri.  They came early to have lunch and do a service project.  I had them gather around me and let them know that they were all "ambassadors" of the Church for the next hour as they took garbage bags and Pageant handouts to the town square just two blocks from the Visitors center.  There they handed out the flyers announcing the two Pageants in Nauvoo over the next 6 weeks and they picked up several large bags of trash around the town square.  The report that came back to me was that several merchants came out of their businesses and thanked them for their service!

At another point, when I greeted the bus groups, I would have them surround me and I would tell them about the jail and share some interesting stories with them.  In one group, I shared with them about the sweet opportunity they would have to walk where Joseph and Hyrum walked in June 1844.  They would see the rooms where Joseph and Hyrum ate meals with the jailer and his family, where Joseph and Hyrum would spend the first night, June 25th, in the jail, and then where they spent their last night on June 27th.  

But more important to them, I suggested that many of them may have not wanted to come on their youth conference trip and may have fought, initially, about going.  But, for whatever reason they decided to come, they now had a very unique opportunity to make some critical changes in their lives as a result of choosing to be here.  Of course, I can never fail to mention the guards that put down their rifles and refused to participate in the murder of Joseph and Hyrum  when they realized that what they were about to do was completely wrong.   It is fascinating history of Joseph and Hyrum that helps each of us want to be better and do better.

Then we would take them into the History room to sing hymns and then into the movie room.  They were given every opportunity to prepare themselves for a Spiritual experience.  And, on one sweet occasion later in the day, a young man worked his way through dozens of youth and came up to me and shook my hand and thanked me for preparing him for this experience.  

But course it wasn't me that did that.  It was this young man wanting to be prepared and making that decision to open his heart and his soul to receive that inspiration, that helped him have a life changing experience.

Believe me when I say that this was a marvelous day.  When mom and I got home around 5:00pm, I was absolutely beat and could only sit and think about what a wonderful day it was.... I was too tired to do anything else!

This is one of 17 groups that we had today.  I just happened to be in a good spot to take this quick picture.  The only thing I knew about this group was that they were from Austin, Texas, and they were two of six bus loads on a stake youth conference trip.  I am confident that we had many testimonies strengthened and an equal number of testimonies created today.  How can you be the same after being here?

We have prepared and prayed and fasted for this day and we were blessed with a marvelous experience as missionaries!   Thank you for checking in with us tonight!