A Nauvoo January

There have not been a lot of changes during the last week.  The weather has warmed up somewhat - our thermostat now hovers between 20 and 40 degrees – much more tolerable.  But the threat of freezing rain is real – especially when the temperature is right around 32 degrees.  As a result a lot of the district workers fear to come over icy road to work their shifts as many require over two hours on the road to get here each time.  It is not unusual to operate the temple with only two thirds of the shift members present.  It is amazing how flexible the workers need to be and are … to ensure that we meet the needs of the patrons as they show up.

Last Wednesday, I began teaching a Spanish class to all district workers and temple missionaries that wanted to attend.  It has been kind of a tradition around here to have such a class.  It meets once a week - each time for an hour - over a period of five weeks.  I don’t know how much one can learn in just five one-hour classes, but we hope for the best.  It is the intent that temple workers can learn to pronounce Spanish sufficiently to perform some of the ordinances and to help make our Hispanic guests feel a little more comfortable when they come.  Some of the visual aids and lesson materials for the class are preserved from year to year, so I don’t need to come up with a course of study from scratch.  But from looking at what I have been given, I find a lot of mistakes – which I am trying to correct as best I can. 

The Nauvoo Illinois Mission is quite unique in that during the winter it has no young missionaries – only senior couples (mostly site missionaries and facility maintenance missionaries).  Young sister missionaries join them during the summer as do the performing missionaries during the months of the pageant.  While the mission president does not preside over the temple missionaries, he does preside at the sacrament meeting held each Sunday - and we are invited to attend with them.  Today was the last Sunday for Pres. Gilliland, the current mission president, who is scheduled to be replaced during this coming week.  We wish him God’s speed as he returns to his home in the Tucson, AZ area.  We don’t know much about the man that will be replacing him yet.

During this past week, I was informed that instead of just doing the Nauvoo pageant this coming summer, we will be doing the British pageant here as well.   We will do the Nauvoo pageant on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and we will do the other on Wednesdays and Fridays.  The same family cast will be used for both, but they will have separate core casts.  As I will be used to help provide the Spanish during these productions, I will be busy familiarizing myself with both scripts when the time draws nigh.  I look forward to that time.