May 9, 2016 - Monday in Nauvoo

We had an overcast day, throughout the day, with some rain this afternoon, and this evening.  The rain would come on our Rendezvous night!  And we had two shows!  Mom and I had very small parts in the play tonight.  But we had a great audience for the second show... the YPM's came in masse and they were a great audience and gave our cast a standing ovation.  That was really special!

Our morning started off with an early wake-up call.  We had our morning devotional and prayers and headed out for our morning walk.  This was our P-day, today, and the time was all ours until the Rendezvous play that started with a rehearsal at 5:45pm.  So we spent our morning after the walk at the 9:00am temple session.  We then went grocery shopping in Keokuk and took our time over there.  Then we came home and enjoyed a very quiet afternoon.

It is probably no surprise that our favorite site is the mail room!  We check out the mail room several times each week and we are so thankful for the cards and the letters!  Here is a picture I took this morning as we made a stop there on our morning walk;

This site is just east of the Visitor's Center on Young Street

And we are always looking for the beautiful transformation of the trees and the flowers during the Spring-time.  Here is a picture of one of those budding trees along our walking path;

It looks like a Christmas Tree - decorated with cone shaped blossoms!

We have enjoyed our P-day today.  It is so fun to have two days together with the Sabbath Day and then with our Monday P-day.  As we anticipate the summer shows beginning May 28th, we will be very busy with two Rendezvous shows each of the two nights we perform every week, and then two Sunset performances each week.  That schedule will go through August 13th.  And the month of July will have summer Pageants every night but Sunday from July 5th through July 30th.

The Young Performing Missionaries have already added a tremendous amount of energy to this mission.  Our mission president is especially taken in with this group of young missionaries.  He is very comfortable with the regular aged missionaries.  I think he is out of his comfort zone with the seniors.  It has been interesting to see his transition into the mission!  Here's to a great summer here in Nauvoo!  Nauvoo will be very busy, much like Carthage was last year!

On a reflective note, from a weekly note I receive from my "Jimmie", (Young Performing Missionary), from last year who is now serving in Italy, I got this message;

Was asked this past week a profound question that caused me a good ol'
bit of good ol' reflection. We are blessed to teach the message of the
Restoration daily, and testify of it more times than you can say
"Baptism" in a minute whist riding a wild hog through the ravenous
jungles of the Amazon (what?), so it hit me hard when a man queried,
"That's a fantastic story and I can feel you believe it, but;

how has this 'Restoration' healed you?"

I had some immediate thoughts on this and shared them with Elder Rosenberg, but I will leave this question for you to answer.  And, if you will, would you post your answer on the blog comment section for all of us to benefit?  I will comment more about this tomorrow! Isn't this Gospel amazing?  And in a "healing" sort of way?