March 26, 2017 - Thursday

Today was our official moving day, but since we got that all done yesterday, we used this as a catch up day for shopping and relaxing.  I was especially tired today after negotiating those stairs in our apartment in Nauvoo yesterday.  Mom and I took our first walk around Carthage this morning and I got some first pictures here on our walk;

Here is a nice front view of the home we are in.  Doesn't it remind you of the Longs Cabin?  The home is located within the gated area of the Carthage Visitor's Center.

 This is a view from near the front corner of the Visitor's Center toward the main building.  The Carthage jail is to the left.

This is a view from our back yard toward the parking lot.  Up to 1,000 visitors per day here in Carthage.  "Millions shall know Brother Joseph......."

Solid iron fencing around the property with our home in the foreground and the Visitor's Center in the background.

This is our view from the front porch, our Country Market!  Opens at 6am and closes at 10pm.  And the pricing is not too out of line.  

After breakfast we took our drive to Quincy for our shopping day for Sam's and Wal Mart and Aldi's.  We found this grocery store in Keokuk called Aldi's that had gallons of milk for $1.79.  Sam's price is $3.49!  As we were driving down the main street in Quincy we saw this Aldi's and checked it out.  Unfortunately the milk was $2.69 but still cheaper than Sam's!  We also went into  Staples in Quincy to laminate a paper and found the Popcornopolis flavored popcorn that we sold at the deli for $6.99 for $1!!  We picked up three bags when I doubled checked the freshness code that had a May 2015 date!

Here is the terrible traffic we had to endure all the way to Qunicy from Carthage, a distance of about 48 miles;

This is a freeway directly from Carthage to Quincy and this was at 10:30am this morning with no real changes on our way home at 2:00pm

We really took the afternoon off and had a very quiet evening.  I was feeling cold and achy and did not want to have it get any worse so we stayed home.  The Shepard's, whom we serve with here in Carthage, stopped by around 6:00pm and mom and I were both in our jammies!  They brought us some barbeque turkey for dinner.  They were so kind and stayed and visited with us for about an hour.  They are great to work with and very thoughtful.

Then we got to talk to Tom and Josie and Zac and Hayley and Jackson, and Mia and Emma while they were driving to Utah for Calli and Courtney's baptism Saturday.  They were traveling in their new Honda Odyssey that was hand delivered to them through a tender mercy that Heavenly Father arranged just for them!

Have a great evening!  I'm off to bed!

March 25, 2015 - Wednesday

We had a busy day today!  It was moving day!  We had our 7:45am weekly training meeting where President Gibbons announced the new major initiative of the Church for missionary work.  It is called #BecauseHeLives  @ HeLives.mormon.org  and will be introduced worldwide on March 28, 2015, and will be active all year through Christmas 2015.  It is always a treat to gather with the missionaries on Wednesday Morning!

Mom and I walked over to the Visitor's Center this morning for the last time for awhile and got some cool fresh air.  We got back to the apartment and gave ourselves two hours to pack the apartment, load the car and then clean the apartment and turn in the keys.  We did it in 2 hours and 10 minutes!  

 

 

The van was loosely "packed" and we got a great workout going up and down those stairs!  We worked hard and wanted to get everything done today on our P-day so that tomorrow, for our "moving day", we could really relax and enjoy!

We arrived in Carthage around 11:45am and got the car unloaded and everything put away by 2:00pm.  It was a busy time but we are grateful to be here and especially in this home on the sacred grounds of Carthage Jail Visitor's Center.  Here is a preview of the new home we are in;

 A "gated " community on the corner of the Carthage Visitor's Center.  This is the front emtrance.

 Our van is packed and ready to unload.  We are parked between both cottages for easy access to the back sliding glass door of our cottage.

From the outside of the home, it reminds me of the Long's Cabin.  It looks so small from the outside but take a look at the inside pictures!  The apartment we left had a bedroom, a living-room, a kitchen and a bathroom.  This home has 3 bedrooms, a piano room where the Carthage District meetings are held, the laundry room, the kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and a large living-room.  Here are some pictures;

 This is the piano room and a meeting table for up to 10 people.  Just behind the piano is the 3rd bedroom with 2 twin beds.  This room comes in from the Carthage Jail Visitor's Center pathway and we enter through a sliding glass door.  Mary, what do you think of that Steinway Piano?

 From the piano room we pass the laundry room.  It is a big area with shelving off to the left of this picture.  This laundry room is right off the klitchen.

Here is Sister Lasher in her greatly expanded kitchen.  This kitchen is about three times bigger than our apartment kitchen, and that yellow door off to the left is a pantry.

 We then enter the living-room with about twice the space of our previous apartment's living-room.  Lot's of room to stretch out and relax!  The door to the right leads to the 2nd big bedroom and the full bathroom.  The door on the left is our bedroom and a half bathroom.

Here is the other half of the living-room and the front door entry.  You can also see into the big bedroom that mom and I will occupy, and off that bedroom is a half bathroom.

This is the first half of the office area.  It is another big room with a closet and storage.  Here is another view;

Well, you get the idea, we have a lot of space waiting to be filled up with family if the opportunity comes.  We hope it does, but we totally understand if it doesn't!

 The family picture in the prime spot in the living-room.  We love looking at this picture and we look forward to a happy and joyful reunion!

 Here is a beautiful print from pictures taken by the window maker for the Nauvoo Temple windows.  He had a huge crane to hang his windows during the temple construction, and then took several pictures of the finished temple.  We got this print at his store in Nauvoo, and got a frame at Wal Mart.

 

This little guy was the Carthage welcoming committee for the Lasher's.  I had mom stand by the back sliding glass door when I thought he might want to invite himself in!

 

"Families Are Forever", and that is why we are here!  The different ways we can make a Longs Cabin type "house" into a cozy missionary "home"!

And one of our favorite pictures of "rescue".  We put this picture right above the kitchen table so that we can enjoy it every day as we prepare for our service!  That is mom's braided table runner that she got a few weeks ago in the Family Living Center in Nauvoo.  Missionaries can purchase these runners that were made in the Family Living Center for $3 each, no matter what size...

And finally, mom and I attended the temple tonight with part of our cast members.  We drove back into Nauvoo and attended with them, the 6pm session.  We got to be the witness couple and the day was concluded with a quiet drive home to Carthage.  It has been a busy and a productive day for two tired senior missionaries!

 

Thank you for checking in tonight!  We love you and pray for each of our family and friends and we appreciate your love and support of us.  We could not be doing this without that love and support!

March 24, 2015 - Tuesday

We are having a wonderful experience working in Carthage.  The hardest part is trying to add information with another missionary conducting the tour.  That definitely does not work well unless that missionary asks specifically for comments.  It is a learning curve but I think we are getting better each day. Mom and I are both getting comfortable with giving the tours.  Tomorrow in our missionary training meeting, we will be sustained as the assistant site leaders.  

We have been getting several pre-conference visitors from all over the world.  We had a family from Argentina today along with a family from Norway and Finland.  They were wonderful to talk with and most were coming to Carthage for the first time and we got to give them tours!  

The family from Finland was especially fun to talk to.  His name is Ismo Hiltunen and I immediately texted and then called our daughter, Josie, to tell her we were about to give a Finnish member a tour.  She got to talk to him and he knew some people that Josie knew when she served her mission in Finland in 2001!  She found out that one of the members she knew in Kuopio was his relative, Virpi Matilainen.  What a small world!  Also, last week I gave a tour to a family from South Korea.  I had to take a picture today of our guests from Finland;

Brother and Sister Hiltunen from Finland

This has been a real special treat to work in Carthage.  Mom and I will pack up the apartment tomorrow in Nauvoo, after our weekly missionary training meeting, and will settle into our new place in Carthage.  It will be a quick and smooth move. Then we were given Thursday to get settled in and our assignment will then begin officially for four to six months.

I took a family of four on the tour of Carthage this afternoon.  They had two sons with them.  One was 12 years old and the other one was 9.  We typically show the movie in the theater prior to taking the tour of the jail.  It is about the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith and lasts for 18 minutes. This is the only location in the church where this movie is shown. The father was visibly moved by the movie and I like to ask the question to the mothers and fathers, "what would you think if your 14 year old son came to you with this story?"  I don't usually expect a response, but I like to ask that question. 

They thought about it for a minute and then I invited them to follow me on the tour of the jail.  When we got to the Martyrdom room I gave some information and then started a 4 minute recording of the final day of the Prophet and his brother.  Both parents were moved by the experience and I felt to ask the father to bear his testimony to his sons, and he did.  What a wonderful testimony of Joseph Smith!  That was a sweet experience for me and I think for them. 

We appeared in our Tuesday Rendezvous tonight and we are feeling more comfortable each time.  For the month of March we go on stage Tuesday's and Friday's.  Next week it will change to Wednesday's and Saturday's.  The stage show will never be the same....

March 23, 2015 - Monday

Sister Lasher and I enjoyed day two in Carthage today.  We are commuting from Nauvoo until Wednesday and then we will move to Carthage on that, our preparation, day.  I am looking forward to getting settled in the new home and we look forward to and hope for some overnight visitors!  Serving in Carthage is such a precious privilege for mom and me. 

Each time I give the tour and ponder quietly the events that took place in Carthage on June 27, 1844, my testimony and my love for the Prophet Joseph and his brothers Hyrum and Sam continues to grow.  I am started to read the books from the extensive Carthage library.  The information is fascinating and I will share different accounts as the days and weeks come.

We had about 60 visitors today from several different states.  I gave a tour to a couple about my age and shared the experiences of June 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27th with them and shared a brief testimony.  I felt a sweet Spirit talking with them and thought that they felt the same way.

As we came down the stairs from the Martyrdom room, they asked me about my mission and what it would entail to go on a church mission.  They shared with me that they never thought that they could serve a mission until I put on the Bishop's hat, (just briefly), and told them the process.  He told me that I gave them a wonderful tour, but that they had gotten more out of what I told him about preparing for a mission than they did from the tour.  He indicated they were returning to Indiana and they would go and see their Bishop!

Here are some pictures from today;

Walking up the path to open the center early this morning

Approaching the front doors on the right and the jail on the left

We open up the front doors and offices and restrooms, and then we adjust the lighting and the music system.  We then have prayer and open up the summer kitchen and the jail.  The grounds are just starting to bloom with hundreds of tulips.  In April we will have a full time missionary couple to maintain the grounds, plant flowers and mow the lawns.  This will be a garden paradise in just a few weeks and with some warm Spring weather!

 Here is Sister Lasher giving an orientation just before introducing the movie.  In this Visitor's center, there is an 18 minute movie on the life of the Prophet Joseph Smith that can only be seen here.  All of the dialog in the movie has been taken from journals and letters of people who knew Joseph Smith personally.  We usually start with the movie and then tour the jail.  We have had many choice experiences already here at Carthage with our visitors, and with the promptings of the Spirit!  Come and see!

Sister Lasher kept her coat on most of the day.  The temperature never went over 40 degrees and it was cold when we went outside to the jail tour!  This is a wonderful place to serve and we feel so very blessed to be able to serve here in Carthage for the next four to six months.

Come and see us!  We are looking forward to seeing you!

March 22, 2015 - Sunday

This has been a very busy Sabbath Day for both mom and me.  We both taught the lesson in Priesthood and Relief Society and I had the privilege of assisting in blessing the Sacrament this morning.  Then mom and I drove to Carthage with Elder and Sister Wright who had the assignment to work with us today.  It was a beautiful day with a brisk wind that gave us a chill when we went from the Visitor's Center to the jail on our tours.  The hours for the Carthage Visitor's Center today was 12:30pm to 5:00pm.  We had a light turnout at Carthage today and gave tours to about 60 visitors.  We had one family that came and their mother was one of the actors in the Cokeville Miracle Movie we saw this evening for our "sociable",(another term for fireside).  

Both mom and I felt very good about our lessons and we were well supported by the spirit.  Our assigned lesson was Chapter 6 in Teachings of the Prophets, Ezra Taft Benson.  If only more people would have listened and acted upon his counsel and teachings back in the 60's!  We are so very grateful to associate with such good people here in the Nauvoo Mission.

And the fireside was amazing.  TC Christensen, an LDS film maker, was there and is the one who put the movie together.  The release date is June 5th in the Utah Valley, and if it does well, he will release it in Arizona and Idaho.  I guess they have test areas where it will most likely be well received and then the area expands into other markets.  Mom and I both felt it was an excellent yet very intense movie.  We do not recommend that any of our grandchildren go and see it.  Probably 18 and up might be able to best handle the intensity as it involves those precious elementary children and a madman and his wife.  However the message was excellent.

It has been a good day and we are preparing for a busy week of moving to Carthage this week.  We have both Wednesday and Thursday off this week to move and get resettled there in our huge home in Carthage.

March 21, 2015 - Saturday

Sister Lasher and I were up early this morning as we read and prayed together and then took an early morning walk around Nauvoo.  We had a service opportunity at the Stake Center this morning at 7:30am and that is where we scheduled our walk to go so that we would be on time.  We were able to work with other senior missionaries to clean the building.  There were about 12 of us in attendance.  Mom and I got to clean the kitchen and the windows throughout the building.

It is always more fun working together!  Those windows were so shinny when we got done!

We then hurried home to get ready for our site assignments.  Mom had the assignment to work at the Lucy Mack Smith home and I got to work in the Blacksmith shop one last time before we start full time in the Carthage Jail Visitor's Center tomorrow.  

Here is pioneer Ma inviting me in for a quick tour of Lucy Mack Smith's home.  This is an amazing residence and I had to take some pictures for our blog.  This is the last assignment for mom before we start in Carthage tomorrow and this is one of the many assignments she has really enjoyed.

 This is the original smokehouse on Lucy Mack Smith's property.  This has been preserved over 170 years and was used for a variety of different things including the original intention of smoking the meat that was available for her family.

This is a marvelous picture of two pioneer era missionaries standing in front of the well that was dug for Lucy Mack Smith.  Some of the stones were repaired, but this is her well!  She drew drinking water from this well for her family, and drew the living water from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is a lovely picture of a beautiful pioneer women looking down into the Lucy Mack Smith well to determine the depth of the water.  These wells were hand dug and the wall of the well was build as the well was being constructed.  In some instances, the pioneer men were killed when the wall of the well collapsed on them in the process of being constructed.

Here is an "ash hopper" area right outside the smoke house.  We were very fortunate to capture two early pioneers in the process of preparing the fire and getting the water boiling to make their soap.  Notice the faces on these wonderful early pioneers.  They loved their work and they loved building Zion wherever they were asked to serve.  Color photos were extremely rare in the 1840's in Nauvoo, so we feel especially blessed to have been able to capture this moment in history.

 Here is the fireplace in Lucy Mack Smith's home.  With the long dresses and petticoats that the women wore, a fireplace was a dangerous place for a women to be working.  It was one of the three major causes of death in the Nauvoo years for a women if her dress caught fire.

 This is the upstairs living area in the Lucy Mack Smith home.  Younger family members would live in the upstairs areas because of the steep stairway coming into the upper floors.

Take a look at these stairs!  This is what the family members had to climb to get into the upstairs living quarters.  This was another of the top three ways that caused death among the women.... falling down the stairs.  The third was was in child birth.  The pioneer women worked long had often very hard hours to take care of their homes and families.  They were a precious blessing to all those they served faithfully and Sister Smith, (Mother Smith as she loved to be called), was one of the foremost women of faith in the Nauvoo era.

This is Mother Smith's sleeping area within about 15 feet of the fireplace on the main floor of the home.  There came a point in her life when she could no longer climb those stairs.

Also included in Mother Smith's home is a complete set of china that belonged to her sister-in-law, and is missing just one tea saucer.  The set is irreplaceable and is displayed behind a class curio cabinet in the front room.  I meant to take a picture but I had to hurry off to the Blacksmith Shop!

Here are some more pictures in the Blacksmith / Wainwright shop;

The Chancey Webb Blacksmith shop would make any size wagon on carriage a person wanted.  The above picture shows some of those wagons. Some had seats for the drivers and some were made just to carry goods and personal belongings across the plains to the Rocky Mountains.  This was a distance of about 1,400 miles and the journey would take around 100 days if the traveler kept moving.

 This picture shows many of the tools a blacksmith could make.  Many of these tools would be used in his own trade, or he would make them for other trades based on discussions or possibly drawings of what the tradesman needed.

 These are pictures of the harnesses that were used back in the 1840's.  Most wagons used oxen as teams to pull the loaded wagons but some still used horses.  Interesting to note is that horses were more expensive to use, but a little faster than oxen.  The oxen would walk about the same pace as the pioneer, about 2 to 3 miles per hour.  The house could walk 4 to 5 miles per hour.  However, the horse was a very sought after animal from the Indians whereas the oxen were not.  And the pioneer needed to take food along for his house, whereas the oxen would be able to survive on the plentiful prairie grasses.

 This is the wagon that Brigham Young authorized for the trek to the Rocky Mountains.  It was 3' wide by 11' long and could carry up to 2,000 pounds.  There is no place on this wagon for a teamster since he could weigh 200 to 250 pounds and take away from the maximum load capacity.  Driving a team of oxen was done by the teamster walking along side the oxen, thus saving that valuable space for food and supplies.  Interesting to note, every 3rd or 4th wagon carried wagon parts for potential breakdowns along the way.  The Saints were prepared temporally as well as spiritually for the trek west.

Tonight mom and I stayed close to home and did some laundry and worked on our Priesthood and Relief Society lessons for tomorrow.  We also baked some cookies for the premiere showing of the "Cokeville Miracle" movie being released in April, 2015, by T.C. Christensen.  Brother Christensen will be here along with the principal of that school where this miracle took place to give the missionaries a preview and a fireside on the making of this film. I got to meet this principal and his wife today on a tour of the Blacksmith Shop and gave them a personal review of Mary's Prairie Diamond story....

Here is an article on the making of that movie:

COKEVILLE, Wyo. — On May 16, 1986, David and Doris Young stormed into Cokeville Elementary in Cokeville, Wyoming, and took the entire student body hostage then set off a bomb.

It’s something the tiny community will never forget and an incident filmmaker T.C. Christensen is documenting.

The working title for the movie is "The Cokeville Miracle," and Christensen said to watch for it to be released between March and July 2015.

Ron Hartley was an investigator for the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office at the time and he remembers the day clearly.

"I didn't even know anything about the bombing until I drove up on the scene," Hartley said. "My heart just sank, because I knew I had four children in there."

As he arrived on scene, it was a mass of confusion.

"There were little kids, lots of little kids coming out, and they were black with smoke," Hartley said. "Their faces were tear streaked through the smoke. It was total chaos. The ceiling lights were all blown out and the TV was all melted. There were pockmarks on the wall and the explosion went straight up through the ceiling instead of going out."

The bomb investigator had no explanation for why the bomb went up instead of out.

Credit: KSL TV

"When I walked up towards him, he just said, 'Hartley, I'm not a religious man,' but he said this is a miracle," Hartley said. "If this had gone off the way it was intended to go off, it would have leveled this school and there would be a lot of dead children."

After the Youngs set off the bomb, miraculously the only people killed in the blast were them. In the days following the explosion, many of the children in the room reported seeing guardian angels present in the room at the time of the bombing. Ron Hartley’s boy was one of them

"I asked, 'What happened at the bombing, son?' And he said there were angels there," Hartley said. "There were angels for everybody."

Hartley's son told him as the bomb went off the angels surrounded the explosion and went up through the ceiling with the blast and then came back down. His son had no idea that the bomb investigator was perplexed about how the bomb went up instead of out. After hearing his son's explanation of events, Hartley was convinced his boy spoke the truth.

This is the event Christensen plans to highlight on the big screen.

"The thing that first attracted me to this story idea was just the fact that you have a school room full of 154 people and a bomb goes off and the only people that die are the perpetrators," Christensen said. "All the innocents get out. Just that is pretty incredible, but this story goes way beyond even that."

It’s not the violence and mayhem that Christensen is focusing on, but rather the miracles surrounding the event. He says the major theme of the film is that people realized through this incident that they were not alone, that God was involved and watching out for them.

When I walked up towards him, he just said, 'Hartley, I'm not a religious man,' but he said this is a miracle. If this had gone off the way it was intended to go off, it would have leveled this school and there would be a lot of dead children.

–Ron Hartley, Lincoln County Sheriff's Office

Amid the chaos and confusion of the movie set a sense of healing has also been taking place. Survivors from the original hostage situation have gone there and have found healing.

Kamron Wixom was a sixth-grade student at Cokeville Elementary at the time of the bombing. He visited the set of the film several times.

"I gave 17 pages of journal notes that I compiled together and tried to remember everything I could and handed it over to T.C.," Wixom said. "Whether it was for him or for me, I needed to write it down. It made it so that the experience for me became a third-person thing that I could look at as if I was watching a movie."

Not everyone involved with the Cokeville bombing is happy about the making of this movie, but Christensen is hopeful that good will come from telling this story.

"I think it's a great film about hope," he said. "I think that we are in need of seeing that we're not alone and not that every incident ends as well as this incident ended but that we can see we're not alone."

Contributing: Keith McCord

We are looking forward to the fireside and our first day in Carthage as the site leaders tomorrow.  Thank you for checking in tonight!  We love you!

March 20, 2015 - Friday

Welcome to the first day of Spring!  It was a cool 45 degrees this morning when mom and I went out for our walk.  The sky was cloudy and we had rain last night, but this morning there was no rain.  We enjoyed out walk and then came home for breakfast before going to support a service project to relocate the Pageant clothing.  There are over 15,000 pieces of clothing for the summer pageant this summer and the old storage place was no longer available.  We worked until about 10:15am and then went home to get ready for our site assignments.

Just before we left home for the site assignments, we got a phone call from the Rendezvous director.  She wanted to come and speak to us before we left and was there within a few minutes.  She wanted us to consider two different vignettes for the Rendezvous for this summer.  One involved a speaking part for me and the other was for both of us.  Guess which one mom voted for??? ..... I need to know my lines by the end of April.  For those who have been to Nauvoo in the summer, it is the part that is added to Rendezvous with Jimmy and his Pa.  I am his Pa...  

Mom served in the Family Living Center and I served at the Brickyard.  Beginning Sunday we will be at Carthage full time.  We were given Wednesday and Thursday to pack and move to our new home in Carthage.

We had our Rendezvous play tonight and we performed before a very lively audience that included the 12 new couples that just arrived last night and today.  The Nauvoo Mission should be in full swing with around 180 missionaries by May 1st.    

This has been a good day.  Busy and good!