May 26, 2016 - Thursday in Nauvoo

We woke up this morning to quite a thunderstorm and rain.  It sounded fierce and threatening!  But it only lasted less than an hour.  Mom had her assignment in the gardens today and I went to the Handcart Station and got it ready for some possible visitors.  There were no scheduled treks today so after getting things up and going, I went over to help mom and the ladies do some more planting.

The Nauvoo morning sky after the thunder!

Another view this morning

See the Nauvoo Temple in the lower left corner?

This is the sunrise hitting the thunder clouds over the Stake Center

The residue of the thunder clouds over the Nauvoo Temple

After our morning devotional and prayers, I took our usual walk, without mom.  She had to be at the FM facility by 7:00am so I had my workout, and went to the Visitors Center at 8:45am to pick up the radio and then set up the handcart area.  I was in such a hurry, I did not take some pictures of the handcart set-up...

I met up with mom at 9:15am and we worked hard getting more gardens planted.  The planting of the gardens throughout Nauvoo is about a week or so behind.  They have not scheduled enough workers to help Richard, (the horticulturalist), get the gardens completed by Memorial Day weekend.  I am scheduled there in the gardens, tomorrow, and mom is the 2nd Wagon Narrator.  What a workout it is to bend and stretch and dig in the soil to make these grounds beautiful!

Again, I hit the ground running, planting the gardens and the planters, so I totally forgot to take some pictures.  I will get them tomorrow!  We planted another 2,500 plants.  In total, mom and I have helped to plant over 20,000 plants to help beautify the Nauvoo area.  It is wonderful to have a small part in helping to ultimately plant over 75,000 flowers and bedding plants throughout Nauvoo!

We had our last Rendezvous Play tonight that mom and I will be featured in.... BEFORE the Lasher's come next week!  We are so excited to have them come and be with us!  Tonight, we had two shows.  In the second show, this precious little girl on the front row raised her hand to ask me a question as I was delivering a line.  You can imagine I was trying to see how I could acknowledge her and not miss the lines I was delivering.  Incidentally, there were only about 100 pairs of eyes watching me at this point!  Well, I was able to recite all the lines and then I bent over and gave her knuckles!  She was excited and happy, and so was I!