June 23, 2016 - Thursday in Nauvoo

After a good nights sleep, mom and I were up super early to begin this day.  We wanted to take our morning walk before our first handcart trek at 8:00am.  So after our morning devotional and prayers, we left the house at a little before 5:00am and got our full walk in before 6:15am.  Take a look at our indoor/outdoor temperature gauge readings from this morning;

The morning temperature was in the high 70's already at 4:00am, and before the picture, it was above 80 degrees!  But, it slowly "cooled" down to the mid 70's by the time we got to the Handcart Station at 7:30am.  We had our first group come at the appointed time.  It was the family of one of the temple missionaries.  They were such a sweet group of 4 children, the parents and the grandparents.  They got off right on time.  And before they started, we had prayer with them and their young son, (and grandson), who was about 7 or 8 years old, offered the sweetest prayer for the trek, and the safety of his family.

Then our next group did not show up at all.  We then had a family come in around 9:00am that we thought just came late, but it was a scheduled family that we did not get put on our list from the scheduling office.  However, we easily accommodated them and they were off by 9:10am, and they had a great experience.  

Then, around 10:30am, we had another family wanting to take the trek that had not made a reservation.  It was no problem.  They got to the Handcart Station around 10:40am and we gave the orientation and they were so excited to go.  They were Spanish speaking, but with several in the group of 12 that spoke English.  This group was, again, a family of children, parents, and grandparents.  As with each group, we had a prayer with them after giving them the orientation.  They were especially grateful for the demonstration we gave on the Thorny Locust Tree.  And they were so excited to have this opportunity to experience, first hand, some of the events that the early handcart pioneers experienced.  They even opted for the two mile trek instead of the regular one mile experience.

After about an hour and a half, I walked the beginning of the trail to see if they were on their way back.  I did not see them coming, so I jumped in the 4-wheeler and went by way of the back trail to see where they were.  I caught sight of them at the last half mile marker and we exchanged waves so that I knew they were OK.  Then I followed around the perimeter of their trail to make sure everyone was going along without incident, and they were. 

When we met back at the Handcart Station they were in awe of the experience they had just participated in.  They had an evidently much deeper respect, for the handcart pioneer Saints, and some of the adults were in tears.  Mom and I immediately felt the Spirit they were feeling.  And then something happened in their group that we have not seen before as they gathered for a prayer of thanksgiving and appreciation for what they had all just felt as a family.  Mom and I joined them in their tears of gratitude, and then the adult men all gave me a big hug and thanked us for our service.  What a privilege it was to be a part of this sacred time with this precious family.

Our Sunset show was great tonight.  We had about 675 guests in the audience.  One group we had there was from Ohio, and another group was from Texas.  We even had some of those who went on the trek, this morning, in attendance and we got to say hello to them again.

Look at this precious Levi!  Great picture!

Cody getting a base hit last night at his game!

Jacob throwing strikes in his pitching debut!

We love getting these pictures from home.  (Thanks, again, to my son who helped me figure out how to download them!)  The grand-kids are all looking good, and we love to see them in action!  Thank you for checking in with us tonight!