May 6, 2016 - Friday in Nauvoo

I am posting early tonight because it has been an exhausting day!  We had the early morning mission breakfast at 6:45am this morning at the Stake Center.  The mission is rapidly filling up again!  The balance of the senior missionaries come in this month, and the Young Performing Missionaries arrive today and tomorrow.  In total, we will have over 300 missionaries here for the summer months beginning Memorial Day weekend.

Mom got to hear from some of her precious children today for Mother's Day!  What a blessing our children are to us!  We also found out that we will have Sunday off, again, this week!  That makes three Sunday's in a row!  That hasn't happened in quite some time.  In fact, I can not remember the last time we had that many in a row like this.  That means we have Mother's Day off and we can talk to all our precious children!  Thank you for the special notes and the gifts mom received today!  

The Salines with Elder Aina

We said goodbye to the Salines at the breakfast today.  She was the Rendezvous Director for the winter and was always so positive with us.  They will be headed home in less than two weeks!  We have enjoyed getting to know them.

Then, we were off to Carthage!  As a group of FM gardeners, we cleaned out the spring Tulips and started preparing the flower beds for the summer flowers.  This made for a much different perspective of the Carthage Visitor Center grounds for mom and me!  Here is an action shot of the Horticulturists in training;

Mom and Sister Horlacher

Tip toeing through the Tulips!

It was a perfect day to be working in the gardens.  It took us less than two hours to clean out the flower beds.  We then "splurged" and went out to lunch there at Carthage.  We ate at the Mexican food restaurant on the Town Square with our little band of workers.  I should have taken a picture!

When we got back home, it was just a little past 1:00pm.  That gave us the opportunity to attend the 2:00pm Friday temple session.  It was a small session and mom and I were the witness couple, again.  As we were leaving the temple, we walked through the wedding party that attended Rendezvous last night.  We had a few comments about them seeing us there, and then, lot's of whispers about; "they were in that play last night!"..... It made us feel kind of like stars!.... Wait a minute...adulation is poison....  Oh well, it was kind of fun anyway!

What a blessing it has been to be in so many parts of this mission!  It was especially interesting to see groups going on tours through the jail as we were preparing the grounds for the summer color.  It takes everyone's efforts to make this mission so successful... Just like it takes everyone's efforts to make the ward and the stakes successful.  The more we can pull together, the better it will be as we all strive to prepare sufficiently for the Savior to return, and for Him to lead His Zion people back home!