December 4, 2015 - Friday in Nauvoo

Today, mom and I had separate schedules.  I worked at the Boot Shop and she worked at the Visitor's Center.  Somehow our mission schedulers thought it would be good to schedule mom with another married Elder and I would sit in the Boot Shop with even another Elder.  The mission president was informed when we first saw the schedule last week, so going forward, that may or may not happen again...

We did get our walk in this morning.  It was a brisk 30 degrees with no wind and no black ice.  We had our morning devotional and prayers at our usual time this morning, and were out on the walk just before 6:00am.  I tried to catch the first morning rays of sunshine.  Today it made it into the low 50's with sunshine all day!

I even tried a shot down Mulholland Street at 6:15am this morning to show the Christmas lights.  This picture doesn't do it justice for sure.  The city is pretty well decorated and festive looking.  It is such a huge difference from the decorations we saw in the in the Philippines!  I went back and took a look at our blog on December 4, 2014...

At 8:25am we parted company for the day.  Mom had to be at the Visitor's Center at 8:45am and I had to be at the Boot Shop at 9:45am.  All the sites closed today at 3:00pm for a mission community event.  Mom and I were back at the Visitor's Center at 4:00pm for the Christmas Walk celebration and tree lighting ceremony.  Here are some pictures with explanations;

The Mission President presiding and about 400 guests from the community.

The Warsaw High School Band -

Overflow guests

The officially lighted tree with "balcony seating only"

It appears that the activity was a success.  There were community members from all over the area including Hamilton and Warsaw.  I can imagine the ancestors of those participating tonight from Warsaw and surrounding areas must feel a little strange with their descendants participating in a Mormon activity.... 

It has been such a long and difficult road to bridge these bad feelings passed down from generation to generation.  The youth don't know why they don't like the Mormons, except that their parents said they don't like the Mormons.  Activities like this go a long way to break the cycle of misunderstandings.

Tomorrow we are taking a road trip to see Helen's sister, Julie, in Blue Springs, Missouri.  We have the early shift tomorrow and we are off Sunday and Monday.  It is a good time to take advantage of seeing Julie and Steve while we are this close to them.  Hopefully they will reciprocate and come and see Nauvoo!