A week of training

The new missionaries arrived on the 18^th.  Since then we have been busy helping them settle in and then train them so that when the temple re-opens, the work can continue smoothly and efficiently. We have had all of them come to our various apartments so that we can feed them and get to know them two at a time.  My problem now is remembering who is who as we are becoming friends with about 40 new couples.

Training started with a tour of the temple.  Tours are normally not given, but these people need to be able to get from point A to point B without ending up in a dressing room for the wrong gender, etc.  With a temple that is laid out on six floors it is easy to forget which floor you need to be on.  Then, private (or closed) endowment sessions were provided so they could watch the way it is done in this temple.  Training films were also shown, not that they hadn’t already seen them a million times, but we just wanted to make sure that we all started off with the same instruction.  With permission from the First Presidency, we were allowed to meet in the Assembly Room during our training week.  There we listened as each of the temple presidency members, their wives and the recorder talked to us all – trying to answer questions that might arise and help each to feel comfortable in their new callings.  We ended with a special meeting where snippets were replicated from the ground-breaking, corner-stone laying and dedication of the temple (NAUV2) – including the dedicatory prayer.  As I recall, something similar was done last year using snippets from the multiple dedications of the original temple here in Nauvoo.

Starting this last Sunday, we were all sent out to help the many wards and branches in the temple district: to be with them and to strengthen them as best we can.  We were sent out to be part of the Mt. Pleasant Iowa branch.  It is about an hour’s drive from Nauvoo.  Of course, Sunday was a day that was predicted to bring with it a lot of thunder storms and rain and even possible tornados.  But when the time came for us to leave, the weather looked reasonable - so we headed off to enjoy some time with the Mt. Pleasant branch.  It started to sprinkle just a little before we arrived home later that day.  So for us the weather was good – until that night when the thunder and lightning suggested a war in the heavens was waging in all its fury.  But we will be returning every week to attend meeting with the branch there and see what we can do to help out.   This branch is actually the combination of two smaller branches – a Spanish speaking branch having been assimilated in with the English speaking branch.  Now, as we arrive, we find that all but two of the Spanish speaking families have gone inactive and perhaps there is a lot that we can do to try and reclaim these other families that aren’t coming any more.  We are not alone.  Two other temple missionary couples are also assigned to come with us.  One of the other couples also speak some Spanish.  Pray for our success.