August 11, 2015 - Tuesday in Carthage

Mom and I had a nice change of pace day today.  We had our usual morning devotional and prayers before our morning walk.  We arrived at the Visitors Center a few minutes early and caught up on some missed housekeeping duties from the custodians last night.  And we had the morning cleaning of the jail.  But the change a pace came when we took the opportunity to have lunch with some friends from the Emma Hale cast that we are in for the Rendezvous Plays, and from the summer Sunset performances.  

We haven't done any of this before, because of the cost of going out, but this couple invited us and they paid for us!  We enjoyed our time with them and getting to know them a little better.  They came out about 2 months after we did and will go home about 3 months before we do, so we will have some more fun experiences with them for sure.

I had two tours today in the Visitors Center.  One family, in particular, was very interesting to me.  They had three teenagers in the family and the oldest of the two girls was being taken to her first semester at a college in the St. George area.  The family was from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area.  When we first started to take the tour of the jail, I could tell she was very disconnected to the experience.  She would hardly look at me as I started to explain the history of the jail building.  I knew that I would need to employ some additional facts to get her engaged in the experience, so I introduced the plan that Joseph had to run for President of the United States.  

It always amazes me how many people do not know this one fact about Joseph Smith.  This fact is such a contributing factor to understanding the powerful influence Joseph had in the 1840's.  As I unfolded his platform for running for the office of President, and the influence he had in the country at that time, her interest was peaked.  She wasn't totally engaged in the entire tour, but she finally participated in the conversation and I felt that she had several seeds planted that her parents were desperate for her to have before they dropped her off in St. George.  I directed most of my historical information to her and she seemed very interested and connected when I did.

Then, I got this call from the mission presidency......  President Brinley is a counselor in the presidency and he asked me how close I was to being able to start the part in the Rendezvous Play as the Editor.  As I fumbled with some unintelligible answer, and then he asked me if I could be ready by next week.  He indicated that the current person filling that role needed to be replaced.  Here I am thinking I have another four to six weeks and, in reality, I have four to six days......

Well, keep praying for me because I will need all the help I can get.  I don't want to let anyone down, but I could never have imagined I would be in this position two months ago....  This gives a whole new dimension to the saying, "I can do hard things"....  

Thank you for joining me tonight.  But I need to cut things short, here, and go and program my brain to recite 14 pages of Editor script.