A Time of Transition

Last Sunday evening we had a little scare. We got a 'phone tree' call informing us of a tornado warning, asking us to inform the others in our building, and then to take shelter ourselves. A tornado had been sighted down near Warsaw, a small town down-stream from us about 20 miles or so. I don't think that there was really much concern that it would be coming our way, but they did want to get us aware of the possibility and to know what to do when such an event were to occur. And what do we do? We're not really sure. They just asked us to stay away from our windows. We are also told that it is safer to not be in a car – safer lying in a ditch with our heads covered. I'm still not sure of the rational behind that advice. I hope that we only need to sympathize and not empathize with those who have lost their homes, lives or whatever in the recent tornadoes to our south.

On a more positive note, a few weeks ago, the young performing missionaries (40 of them) came to town. Since then, they have got their act together and are now going all over doing their thing and lighting up the faces of many as they sing, dance, act and play in the Nauvoo brass band. The band gets to ride in a horse drawn wagon all over town as they perform. The “Sunset by the Mississippi” production has been moved from the river's edge to an outdoor stage up near the visitor's center so as to be less bug-infested. I don't hear any complaints about that move. These young performers definitely add a level of expertize that just isn't there when the senior couples are trying to carry the show by themselves. Their testimonies are strong and evident in all that they do. The cast for the pageant isn't here yet. Otherwise I think most all missionaries and performers are now here that are coming for the summer. I have been asked to help out with the Spanish translation required for the pageant. I'm not quite sure what all that will require, but I guess I will be finding out in another week or two.

The weather here has been tolerable. It's spring time and, unlike last year – or so I am told, there has been a lot of rain. It's been raining here a couple of times every week – and each time, we are reported to have gotten anywhere from ½ inch to 2 inches. We are learning to keep our umbrellas close at hand. But with the rain, the weather has been fairly cool. Today the temperatures have been in the high 50's and low 60's. I understand that summer will be different, but it hasn't come yet.

Now that school is out, we expect that the number of tourists that will be coming our way will start to increase. Previously, there have been a number of bus-loads of kids that have come by, probably field trips from schools in the area. As the number of tourists increases, so will the size of the sessions in the temple. Up until now, there has always been room for ordinance workers, like us, to go on sessions as patrons. That will likely cease in the next week or two. There are a number of local members that have kept us going and we are appreciative of them. In addition to all the missionaries that are here, there are two wards in Nauvoo. We don't meet with them on Sundays but we meet separately under the direction of the Nauvoo Mission President. Tourists are encouraged to meet with us – we are already starting to use two sacrament tables to meet the demand of the crowds. Won't July and August be fun?!

Everything is in transition. The weather is starting to warm up, school is out and the number of tourists is increasing. The number and ability of the missionaries is increasing, as well, to meet the needs of the growing demands. Please pray for us and the Lord's efforts in this part of His vineyard.

A Day of Reflection

Today is the Sabbath.  We meet each week in a Sacrament Meeting along with the other missionaries that are assigned to work in this area.  Besides the 120 temple missionaries, we see about 160 site missionary couples as well as about 50 young missionaries (either proselyting or performing) .  That adds up to over 500 active LDS attending Church every week!  If you want to get a seat on a soft pew in the chapel, you need to get there early.  What will it be like when we get inundated with the tourists as well during the summer?  At any rate, we arrived early, got a seat and enjoyed the prelude (played today by Sister Bashaw).  Soon the chapel was full, and “late comers” were going directly to the cultural hall to find seats.  As a result, the reverence in the chapel was quite noticeable.  As things quieted down, I looked up to see if it was time for the meetings to begin.  It wasn’t.  We still needed to wait another 12 minutes for the scheduled time to arrive.  But everyone was in their seat.  Nothing was spoken.  All were in quiet meditation – and so it remained until the time to start actually arrived.  What a time for reflection!

One of the speakers in today’s Sacrament Meeting was a young sister missionary.  In her talk, she quoted a member of the Seventy that attended a stake conference which she had been at.  He stated that “It is easier to attend the temple once a week than it is to go only once a month.  To go once a week requires commitment; while going only once a month is an inconvenience”. The statement caused me to reflect back on an evening almost 19 ½ years ago.  Mom (Becky) and I were in attendance to a Saturday evening session of Stake Conference.  It was January 8^th, 1994.  The previous night we had attended a “Know Your Religion” lecture.  The topic for both nights was interestingly the same: “the blessings of temple attendance”.  Afterwards we looked at each other and commented that the Lord was trying to tell us something.  That night we decided to attend the temple every week for the rest of the year.  Previously, we attended once a month – when it was convenient.  We probably made it 9 to 10 times a year on the average.  It was a commitment we had made with the realization that it would not be easy; we swallowed hard, looked into each other’s eyes and said “We’ll do it”.  Little did we realize that there would be several weeks during the year when the temple would be closed and that we would have to go to a different temple to keep our commitment.  But faithfully, we completed our goal and when January rolled around the next year, we asked ourselves if we should quit – or go on – attending the temple every week.  For the joy that we had gained over the previous months, there was no question in either of our minds.  We wanted to continue in the new course that we had begun.  Now almost 2 decades later, we continue to attend and serve in the temple – which has become the center of our lives.  While on this mission, we attend almost daily – not weekly and we could never be happier in the service that we give. 

Friday afternoon and evening we served in the “Arrival Center”.  That evening, the ward from Quincy (about an hour’s drive away) had scheduled a ward temple night.  About 2 dozen of their youth came to do baptisms.  Their priesthood came to officiate and about two dozen more of their adults came to do an endowment at the same time.  Others also came to babysit while the parents were in the temple.  These kept watch over the children in the arrival center and on the playground not far away.  Although we could not leave until all of them were safely on the road back to Quincy, it was an enjoyable evening mingling with the good people that continue to populate the city of Quincy.  If you will recall it was their ancestors that took in the refugee saints that poured in from Far West and other Missouri settlements over 150 years ago.

The apartment and pass-time activities

We live in a wonderful location.  We live in the middle of a huge park or garden – or so it seems.  I included some pictures that we have taken - not only of the building we live in, but also of the views that we get from our living quarters.  (Sorry that we had to take these pictures through the screens that are on all our windows).  Yes, it’s spring, so everything is in bloom.  The flowers are coming up in the little garden plots in front of each apartment building. The trees are unfolding their leaf buds.  And squirrels and birds of every kind are cavorting in the trees, across the lawns and through the air.  It is so much fun to take walks around the flats or down to the river – just a few blocks away.  Down there, the Canadian geese are busy raising their chicks, and honking madly to announce the glee they seem to be having in doing so.  There are turtles, and loons, frogs and, if you’re lucky, deer and other animals that are a little more bashful.

One of the first times we tried to cook something on the stove, our smoke detector went off.  Because the detector is so sensitive, we have learned to turn on the exhaust fan every time we do any cooking.  The electricity went out for most of the afternoon yesterday.  I don’t know if that is going to be a regular occurrence or not.  But as there were others on the flat that were without lights, we weren’t too concerned.  In reality, it helped us identify with our ancestors that lived here about 150 years ago.  They didn’t have electricity either, along with a whole bunch of other things that we take for granted – like running water and indoor plumbing.

We live in a four-plex.  Two couples live downstairs and two couples live upstairs.  We get to climb the stairs.  We were provided with a king-sized bed (actually two single beds pushed together, with a memory-foam over the top to make it look like a single bed.  We are not used to such huge expanses to sleep in, and frequently wake up in the morning, only having used about half the bed.  We are also furnished with all the necessities – even to the point that we don’t have enough room for all the chairs. 

We have TV, with VCR and DVD players – not that we have wanted to use our spare time thus far in such activities.  But I suppose they would be reasonable pass-times when the rain decides to persist for hours on end.  Right now, we would rather spend our time visiting the many sites that have been provided here around us.  We have been visiting only a few each day.  Yesterday, we visited the brickyard – to see how the saints made bricks.  That was the primary building material around here 150 years ago.  We still have another 19 sites (or activities) that we have not yet seen.  Hopefully we will get to see all of them before the many tourists start dropping in as summer draws nigh.

The temple is not that far away either; we could walk the distance easily within 15-20 minutes, but we probably won’t want to when things get too hot or too cold.  That is, of course, the place where we spend a good portion of almost every day.  Right now, before the crowds come, we are assigned to be patrons almost as often as we are to be ordinance workers.  As a result, we are able to observe how others do the work, and we can learn from their mistakes as well as from their successes.  When the crowds start coming, we will need to find other times to come if we want to be patrons.  We have just been asked to serve as assistant coordinators in the baptistery on Tuesday afternoons.  So if you want to come and do baptisms, come on a Tuesday, any time after 2 pm, and we will definitely be down there at that time.

looking west             -               looking south

 

looking north

 

Mom - at the NE corner of our 4-plex

Our first week with the temple open

We just got back from Church.  During this last week, the Young Performing Missionaries (YPM) arrived here in Nauvoo for the summer.  They bring a better balance to our Church block that previously averaged around 75 in age.  Previously, it mostly consisted of temple missionaries, site missionaries and facilities missionaries (ground keepers).  Note there are no infants, children or mutual-age kids at all.  Now we have about 100 young missionaries to counter-balance all us old people.  As today was testimony meeting, most of the testimonies were given by the YPM.  Many of them mentioned that this was not their first mission but that they had been called a second time - just after having returned from a proselyting mission somewhere else first.  They all seem so excited and strong as they commence this new adventure here in Nauvoo.  The temple missionaries met together for Sunday school and combined priesthood/relief society. During the last hour we continued having our own testimony meeting.  I suppose that is the reason that none of us had tried to compete with the youth during the first hour.  Perhaps the site missionaries that also met with us during the first hour also held their own testimony meeting later on as well.  We only meet with them for sacrament meeting.  As the summer months approach, we will also be joined with the tourists.  That should be interesting since the attendance at sacrament meeting is already around 600.

Yesterday we completed our first week with the temple open. Assignments are coordinated well - helping Mom and me to be together in most of what we did.  Most of our assignments this last week kept us as patrons.  That gave us an additional week to observe and learn the Nauvoo way of doing things.  Mom did get the opportunity to be officiating in initiatory when twin sisters came through for their own endowments.  Saturday was by far the busiest day here last week.  Hopefully it will be an indication of what things will be like as the summer progresses and more people will want to go on sessions here.

Our spring here has been a real roller-coaster.  We'll have a couple of days that look like summer is here: hot and humid, then a 3-day storm will come in, dropping the temperature by 30 or 40 degrees.  We get all sorts of puddles to walk through.  The amount of rainfall here is a lot more than anything either of us have been used to, either in California or in Utah.   The umbrella may become a pretty common accessory for us around here.

Each fast Sunday, we are grouped together with different couples to break the fast.  This week, we have been invited over to the Taylor's residence. We will be meeting with them in another hour or so.  They are not temple missionaries, but have a special call to coordinate the pageant here - scheduling housing and other accommodations for actors, performers, special guests, etc. as well as for the many that come to set up the stage, props, music, etc.  It should be interesting to meet with them.