December 23, 2015 - Wednesday in Nauvoo

We woke up to a warm and windy and rainy Wednesday morning today.  Our training meeting was set to begin at 8:00am so we had no time to take our morning walk.  But mom was quick to get our laundry done and had most of it completed before our meeting, and finished the rest right after the meeting.  We had our morning devotional and prayers this morning and enjoyed a relaxing breakfast together before we left for the training meeting.

Today being the anniversary of Joseph Smith's birthday, the training meeting was centered around the Prophet of the Restoration.  We have learned so much about Joseph's life and teachings and have felt it a blessing to have this opportunity to learn about him.  After our meeting we went straight to our little cottage and got ready to report to our site assignments.  Mom served in the Lucy Mack Smith House today.  Lucy Mack Smith was such a support and cheerleader to her son Joseph Smith Jr.  She was faithful to the Church even though she did not go west with the Saints in 1846.  Her home where mom worked today, has one of the steepest stairways in Nauvoo!

Mom's site assignment today!

I was able to serve at the Blacksmith Shop today.  We kept fairly busy with eight family tours.  I gave 5 of the 8 tours and got to teach several young people about the exodus and about the Prairie Diamonds!  I always have fun teaching the youth about the historical events of the Mormon's in the 1840's!

However, my last tour of the day was to two adults from Peoria, Illinois.  Both were not members of the Church but had so many questions!  I was happy to answer them and they were excited to learn more.  They made a commitment to email me their questions and to come back to Nauvoo and look me up for more information when they had more time.  

In another tour, I had two full time missionaries from the Des Moines, Iowa Mission join our group.  One of the missionaries was from Idaho Falls and is the brother of Lakeisha Good, a former Gandolfo's employee...  Tom, Jared do you remember Lakeisha???  I sure do!  Here is a picture of her brother and his companion.... small world continues!

Elder Good and his companion from Hurricane, Utah

And, while we had a few quiet moments, I took some pictures of the setting sun and the beautiful clouds.  During the last hour of our shift we had a downpour of rain mixed in with some hail.  These pictures are taken about 20 minutes later;

When mom and I got home after our shifts ended at 5:00pm, we talked about going to the 6:00pm temple session.  But we ran out of time and we ran out of energy!  We went to our mission presidents home for his Christmas Missionary open house and then came back home.  

It is always so nice to be home and cozy here in our little cottage.  And we had a bonus by being able to talk to two of our daughters tonight!  I sure look forward to talking to our children and grandchildren.  And we so appreciate the notes of encouragement from our ward family back home!