Our Nauvoo

Quote of the Week:  “We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.”  ~Lucy Mack Smith

Hello to all.  We know it has been a while since we posted anything new, but life here in Nauvoo is crazy busy, but good … really good!  Here are a few highlights for you?

The Gheen Home

We thought it would be fun to add a new section to our blogs ~ yes we will try to be better abound posting more often ~ and always tell of one of the historical sites.  We are going to start with the Gheen Home.  It is just west of the Nauvoo Temple.  It is the former home of William and Ester Gheen.  They were successful Quaker farmers from Pennsylvania.  After joining the church they moved 900 miles to Nauvoo to be with Joseph Smith and the rest of the Saints.  They were a very giving people and gave financial support to neighboring families who could not afford to move to Nauvoo.  

After building their home they were very generous in all that they had to help build the Nauvoo Temple where they could receive the sacred ordinances in the temple, which the Prophet Joseph had taught them.  William donated one day in ten of his labor and they donated half of their property to the Church with an estimated value of $500 to help fund the temple.

Pictured above is the Gheen home.

I am very eager to do a painting of the photo which I took at 8:00 PM last night.

Inside the Gheen home.

Live Video Tours

We continue to give Live Video Tours (LVT) around the world.  Recently we gave tours to England, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, several states and Papa New Guinea.  Each was so much fun.  Other missionaries have recently given tours to Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Mexico, Japan, Germany, Nigeria, Taiwan, Mozambique, Hawaii, Tonga and many other far off places.  The one blessing to come out of the Covid pandemic was opening up Nauvoo to the world through zoom tours.  It is so exciting to be part of giving these tours to people who in all likelihood will never be able to visit Nauvoo in person.  So glad we are a part of it!  

Sisters Coons and Wayment giving a live video tour in Japanese

to guests in Japan.  The scene is on the banks of the Mississippi River

at the end of the Trail of Hope.

4th of July

We enjoyed a very special flag raising ceremony on 4th of July.   The color guard was comprised of missionaries who served in the military.

That evening a lot of us gathered on the lawn in front of the temple

to watch the fireworks from across the Mississippi River.

We Eat Well!

Since our last writing we have enjoyed two really wonderful dinners for the senior missionaries.  The first was a luau complete with live entertainment and amazing food, which included pulled pork, hawaiian rice, fresh fruit and wonderful deserts.

Our second dinner was a cowboy roundup!  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of brisket, turkey, cowboy potatoes and beans all cooked in Dutch ovens and homemade pie for desert!

Three of our great cowboy cooks!

Elders Heward, Rees and Booth

Our live entertainment!

All the young sisters love Chris!

Sisters Austad and Melling.

Pioneer Olympics

The Young Sister Missionaries (YSM) held a hilarious Pioneer Olympics, which included six-legged races, wheelbarrow races, ring toss and other activities after which we all had ice cream sundaes and, oh by the way, Elder Bingham and I grilled hamburgers for the dinner just prior to the Olympics!

Young Performing Missionaries

The Young Performing Missionaries (YPM) serve three month missions here in Nauvoo.  They are jam packed with musical talent.  They sing, play instruments, dance and even act.  They add so much to the joy of Nauvoo.  Can’t imagine what it would be like if the Nauvoo and British Pageants were being performed here this year.

The young man in the middle is Elder West.

He has such a powerful voice and is being recruited

to sing in the Marine Corp Choir. He is a bundle of energy.

On the far left is our good friend Elder Webster.

My short talented friend, Elder Young.

Another bundle of talent!

Sister Schultz has an amazing voice.  

Love hearing her sing!

The longer we are here the more I am convinced the early Saints left Nauvoo because of the horrible weather and the bugs … did I mention bugs?  As if the spiders and May flies weren’t bad enough then comes the cicadas!  Those cicadas are everywhere and make the loudest noise!  One of the first questions we are going to ask our Creator is, “Why?  Why do we have cicadas?  The live under ground for years then come out to multiply then disappear into the ground again.  Why? Why? Why?

Cowpoke Elder Alston

One of my responsibilities on the Mission Presidency is the Teamsters.  I love this group of missionaries and the amazing care and attention they give to our four legged missionaries.  During one of my recent morning visits with them I had the opportunity to watch a farrier whom we contract with put new shoes on the horses.  So much fun to watch!

CRAZY Weather

Although we love the feeling here in Nauvoo and being in the heartland of American, the weather is the craziest thing ever.  We have already experienced several tornado warnings, but the craziest thing of all is the thunder and lightening storms!!!!  We monitor the lightening strikes throughout the day on the WeatherBug application.  Whenever strikes are within five miles we stop all wagon rides, but the horses and oxen away and have the missionaries shelter in place.  We advise all of our guests of the potential danger and encourage them to shelter in place with our missionaries.

Check the image below which shows all the lightening strikes recently occurring within the past 30 minutes.  Note they were right on top of us!  A couple of months ago it was so bad that it wiped out several miles of communication line so none of us had an internet connection ... not sure how we survived without the internet, but we did!

Check the one below ~ it shows the actual temperature and "feels like," which is always worse due to the high humidity.  Now as you can see this image was captured at about 9:30 PM and the temperature was still 85º but felt like 100º ~ that was just not fun!

Bats in the Belfry

OK so we don’t have a belfry; however, we have a beautiful Visitors Center and last night a very large bat found his - or her - way inside.  We tried to scare it out; however, we were clearly more scared of it than it was of us!  Needless to say, this monsterious of a bat is still inside, but we have a professional-bat-catcher on the hunt.  By the way, did we mention that its against the law in Illinois to kill a bat?

Book of Mormon Central

This past few days Steve had the opportunity to escort the cast and film crew of the Book of Mormon Central group as they worked on upcoming episodes of the Come Follow Me YouTube channel.  He had lots of fun telling of the experiences of the early Saints who lived here.

Love and miss you all!

Stay tuned ....