December 20, 2015 - Sunday in Nauvoo

Here I am sitting at the computer, marveling at this Holy Sabbath Day.  In spite of the challenges we each face in our lives, we have the ultimate promise that Jesus is the Christ, and He is our Savior and Redeemer.  All the struggles and challenges will fade away at His coming, and there will be no more tears and heartaches and challenges that seem to affect each of us on a fairly regular basis.  Mom and I spent the day and last evening fasting for a specific answer on some directional concerns and this morning we felt like we knew what we should do.

When we arrived at the Sacrament Meeting about 30 minutes early, as usual,  Elder Swain casually came up to us, greeted us, and expressed frustration with serving in the FM Group and not having a chance to interact with people as he expected to do as a full time senior missionary with his wife.  He said he has been thinking about this for some time when the thought came to him that if the Savior asked him to do the FM work would he do it?  And of course he would.  The message for him and for us as he shared that "random" thought with us was, "bloom where you are planted".  Our time and efforts have to be 100% no matter what we are asked to do!

Therefore, mom and I have a new philosophy, if there is an activity that we can be involved in here in the Illinois, Nauvoo Mission, we will happily support it!  Even if it is after mom's 7:00pm bedtime!  We starting that effort tonight, as one of our New Year's resolutions, and we attended the Miracle of Christmas Concert in the converted Stake Center Chapel. Here are some pretty rare pictures of a temporarily converted Mormon Chapel;

The full Adult Choir with the Children's Choir

The opening song with the Adult Choir

The decorated Chapel with lighting and sound and projection

The Orchestra set up in front of the podium with pews removed

This was a combined effort with several community churches.  One of the "Apostles" from the Community of Christ Church gave one of the evening prayers.  We were encouraged to "applaud" after each performance.  That was hard, but the talent that was represented was pretty amazing.  The program lasted about an hour and included a live Nativity with a precious little baby boy representing Jesus.

As I watched the reenactment of that night over 2,000 years ago, I could picture one of our grandchildren as that precious baby Jesus.  And with the children's choir,  I pictured each of our precious grandchildren singing their hearts out for the birth of Jesus.  Both mom and I were happy we made the second effort to attend this marvelous production tonight, even with the very unusual irregularities that were involved.

Our morning was very relaxing as we had our morning devotional and prayers.  The temperature was in the high 40's this morning so we walked to our meetings.  The air was so fresh and invigorating!  The meetings were wonderful and we were grateful to be here celebrating the last Sabbath Day before Christmas 2015!

Later we were able to share some thoughts with family members.  I will always be amazed at the precious family mom and I have been blessed with.  Sometimes, like today, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for each and every precious family member!  While serving this mission so far away from our precious family, it strikes me as even more imperative that what we do here will be a blessing to our families and friends back home and in various parts on the country.  We could not do this without your love and support!  So, thank you!