January 1, 2016 - Friday in Nauvoo

Ready or not, here we are at the beginning of 2016!  I have been looking forward to this new year and the excitement it brings to us as we serve here in Nauvoo.  Our current mission president, President Gibbons and his wife will be leaving in the next three weeks after serving here for two years.  President Hall and his wife will be coming in the next two weeks to begin their two year calling.  They are coming from Rexburg where he has been serving in the administration of BYU-Idaho.  

Mom and I had separate assignments today.  She served at the Heber C. Kimball Home and I had the nod to serve at the Brickyard.  The Brickyard is a pretty busy place to serve.  There is always something to do and today was no exception.  I had four tours during the seven hour shift.  The first one came right as we opened at 10:00am and the last one walked in as we were scheduled to close at 5:00pm.  

The entire day was spent processing four days worth of brick making.  Usually there are only two and sometimes three days.  But today it was a little different, so I was on my feet for all but about 20 minutes when I took a quick lunch break.    My companion worked very slowly and methodically on the bricks he was processing.  We had 42 trays of bricks to process and he was able to get two of them done.  Yea, that's how my day went, and boy was I ready to head for home!  I caught this picture as we were closing;

The sunset through the trees at the Brickyard

The clouds were a deeper pink than what shows here.  I would have liked to have been closer to the Mississippi River for the sunset!  The temperature was steady at about 25 degrees throughout the day and the sun was shinning throughout most of the day.

By the time I got back to our little cottage two blocks from the Brickyard, mom had dinner ready, and on the table.  What a blessing it is to serve with mom and to become so much better acquainted with each other.  Over the years we have experienced a variety of wonderful and challenging experiences, but we have never spent our time together 24 hours every day and 7 days every week!  

We both have seen tremendous growth and experienced greater appreciation for each other.  More so than we ever thought possible.  It has been such a blessing and such a wonderful opportunity to "test the waters" of the eternities with each other while serving together and growing closer in the process.