May 13, 2016 - Friday in Nauvoo

After a very restful night, mom and I were up, early, for our morning devotional and prayers.  My body still ached from our workout yesterday in Carthage!  I think most of my muscles were severely affected!  Making that morning walk and then working out for about 20 minutes after our walk seemed to help a little in working out the aches and pains.  However, I still felt the affects of that planting assignment yesterday, all day today!

My site assignment took me to the Brickyard, and mom worked at the Wilford Woodruff Home.  We had 210 elementary school children come to the Brickyard today.  They were all 5th graders from a Missouri area school about two and a half hours away.  The kids were all very well behaved, at least after I set the ground rules for the 6 tours I gave.  The children had been divided up into 8 groups of about 28 per group.  They started coming at 9:30am this morning....

Now, here were my "ground rules"; I told each group that we normally give 'one brick' to each group of students.  I then told them that as a brick-maker, I loved giving away bricks.  I told them if they listened and were attentive and respectful, I would be inclined to give each student their very own brick!  Well, you guessed it, I ended up giving away 210 bricks!  They were very anxious to get their own souvenir!

They were a great group of children with some wonderful questions.  We were instructed from the mission presidency that we could not mention any form of religious connections to these early pioneers.  We could not call them "Saints", could not mention "Mormons", and definitely could not use any individual names of people connected to religion or worship.  What a fun challenge that was!

Well, during my question and answer period in the 2nd group, I took the usual questions and had so much fun answering their queries... when one boy saw the picture of Jesus and asked me what that picture was... then a girl quickly said, that is Jesus!  And then I was asked why that picture was here in Nauvoo, and I got to say that the "pioneers" loved Jesus!  And I told them what a GREAT question that was!  

That actually happened again in another tour this afternoon, so I got to tell them the same thing!  And then I invited each group to come back to Nauvoo with their parents and see so many other wonderful sites and plays and activities this summer.  You see, most, if not all, of these school children are not members of the Church....yet!  I look forward to some of them returning this summer! 

And I always added the suggestion they they each take the opportunity to thank the parents and teachers that took the time and effort to bring them here to Nauvoo.  As a result of this effort, they were able to have the best day ever!  I think the adults appreciated that promotion...

On a regular tour, I met this family from Columbia.  This is the Sanchez Family and one of the sisters indicated that she knew Carlos and Ann Sanchez.  She even thought that she dated Carlos' brother when they lived in Columbia.  Carlos, do you recognize this family?

Sanchez Family from Columbia now living in Utah

The sister who thinks she dated Carlos' brother, (or maybe cousin?), is in the white hat.  They were a delight to teach about the Saints here in Nauvoo in the 1840's!

After our site assignments, mom and I attended the 6:00pm temple session.  The crowds are starting to build up so we aren't sure how much longer we will be able to attend temple sessions as the summer season closes in!  So we are taking advantage of every opportunity before we start our four, show days per week, schedule on May 28th, and some of those show days will have two shows of Rendezvous!  It will be a great summer here in Nauvoo so come and see us!