August 28, 2016 - Sunday - My Birthday in Nauvoo!

Well, here we are!  Our final Sabbath Day in Nauvoo, our final set of Sunday meetings, our final opportunity to fast here in Nauvoo, our last (and only) formal interview with the mission president, and his wife, my final night to post on my blog here in Nauvoo, and our last breakfast for lunch in breaking our fast!  There are sure a lot of "lasts" today!  And what a wonderful day it has been with missionary friends bidding us a safe and happy trip back home, along with calls from home helping me celebrate this mission birthday!

Thank you for the phone calls and birthday wishes!  It was so good to hear from so many family members and friends today.  This has to rank among the most memorable birthdays I have had!

It has been a wonderful day of quiet celebration for us. Several senior missionaries gave us hugs and best wishes.  There were even a few senior missionaries who shared birthday wishes with us.  We felt pretty special with our friends and fellow missionaries today!  And now, we are less than half a day away from beginning our road trip back home!  With the work we accomplished yesterday, we should only need an hour tomorrow morning to wrap up our packing and be on the road by 5:00am.

Last Sunday School Class in Nauvoo!

Elder and Sister Aina came by to wish us well

Mission President Hall and his wife - interesting interview...

We had our exit interview with our mission president this morning at 11:45am.  We were done with our interview within 5 minutes.  It was a very awkward interview and we were glad it was short!  Mom and I have tried so hard to be the best we could be here in the mission field and we gave every day our best efforts.  There is no service that is rendered that centers around any earthly person.  

I am convinced that we didn't sacrifice our time and efforts away from precious family members and friends for 18 months to impress any human being.  Our service was in the mission field to share the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to bear testimony of our Savior.  We both feel that our service was accepted by our Heavenly Father and that was reinforced today by the mission president.

Elder and Sister Aina came by to drop off some fresh baked banana bread for my birthday.  They have been so kind and complimentary to us.  They have been in our Emma Hale cast and we have enjoyed our association with them.  We have truly felt the spirit of "Aloha" with them as he hails from Hawaii!  I asked him to give me a Priesthood blessing as we begin the road trip tomorrow, to Virginia Beach, and then back to Utah and Idaho.  He gave me a wonderful and very emotional blessing that will carry us safely across the United States with peace and protection!

It will be very difficult to close this blog.  I have posted all of our wonderful experiences here every single day except one in which the internet was down.  I have 590 posts and 11,424 page views over the last two years.  Now, our mission has come to a close, with our final interview from the mission president today.  Our release as full time missionaries will take place this Wednesday August 31st, which is our official release date from the missionary department.   However, we are all missionaries as President David O. McKay said back in October 1949;

"Every member is a missionary. He or she has the responsibility of bringing somebody: a mother, a father, a neighbor, a fellow worker, an associate, somebody in touch with the messengers of the gospel. If every member will carry that responsibility and if the arrangement to have that mother or that father or somebody meet the authorized representatives of the Church, no power on earth can stop this church from growing. And personal contact is what will influence those investigators. That personal contact, the nature of it, its effect depends upon you. And that’s one thing that I wish to emphasize. There’s one responsibility which no man can evade, that’s the responsibility of personal influence. … It’s what you are, not what you pretend to be that will bring people to investigate".

And President Spencer W. Kimball encouraged us to keep going when he said;

“We must not falter nor weary in well-doing. We must lengthen our stride. Not only is our own eternal welfare at stake, but also the eternal welfare of many of our brothers and sisters who are not now members of this, the true Church. I thrill to the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith in a letter that he sent to the Church from Nauvoo on September 6, 1842: 'Shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward. … Courage … and on, on to the victory!”  ― Spencer W. Kimball 

We have learned so much about the Latter-day Saints who lived here in the seven years between 1939 and 1846.  My Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith has increased a hundred fold from the understanding I had about him before serving here.  The foundation that was established by Joseph and the Nauvoo Saints in the 1840's is an unprecedented history of the American people and needs to be shared with everyone who will listen.  Hopefully, in the next two days, we will be able to begin sharing these experiences with PopPop.

Our mission really has not ended, although the mission blog has.  We will continue our missionary service as we "transfer" from the Illinois, Nauvoo Mission to our next assignment back home!  We are excited to begin our journey tomorrow morning and we so appreciate your prayers on our behalf as we travel the 4,500 miles back to Rigby, Idaho through the city of Virginia Beach and then back across the eastern part of the United States. Our goal is to be back in time to share Jacob's 8th birthday!!  Thank you for your love and support of these two grateful senior missionaries!  Let the road trip begin!