Sunday, May 29, 2016 – Church, Family Living Center, District Dinner/Meeting

After church this morning we had an assignment to serve in the “Family Living Center” from 12:30 until closing at 5:00pm. Yesterday Sis. Johnson and I spent several hours there to familiarize ourselves with all of the teaching stations, the scripts and tools. 

The “Family Living Center” is a large building that has several displays of pioneer era home & farm tools. In addition, there are seven teaching stations. Each station is designed to show what it was like to work and live in Nauvoo in the 1840’s, the skills a family had to have to survive in the frontier era and the tools needed to work, build and live. The stations are Pioneer Kitchen & Bread Making, Candle Making, Barrel Making, Rope Making, Wool & Flax Spinning, Weaving, Rug Making, and Pottery Making.

After some orientation and watching the other seniors give their demonstrations, Sis. Johnson and I were thrown right into the mix. We hit the ground running and felt very comfortable teaching and demonstrating in all of the stations in the “Family Living Center”. 

We were very busy all day. There was a constant parade of visitor coming through the “Family Living Center.”  By the end of the day we had almost 200 visitors and about 15 to 20% of those were not members of the LDS church.

 

One of the groups of visitors Sis. Johnson got to teach was a hard core Harley biker gang! They were seriously tattooed, sleeveless shirts, bandanas, leather vests, mean and ugly looking people. However Sis. Johnson said they were polite and very nice to teach and talk to. It is interesting how I tend to judge people based on their appearance.  Who knows, maybe they were all members of the church. We will never know because we are not allowed to ask a person’s religion. But I will try to do better and not judge people by how they look.

Tonight we attended District Training Meeting at Elder and Sis. Hutchinson’s home. They live right next door do us here on the grounds of the visitor’s center.

Our meeting started with a dinner with all four couples in the district. We all brought ingredients for a “Potato Bar”, Mmmm- Goood! Our District Leader, Elder Horlacher and his wife are being transferred to Nauvoo next week, so this dinner & meeting was a farewell send off too. 

The training was excellent. The subject was, “How we can teach people, not lessons.” The other three couples in our district all give tours at the Visitor’s Center and Carthage Jail. They all know what it is like to feel the spirit testify as the guests walk through the jail and stand on the very spot where Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred. They each shared stories and experiences of how they feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost as they guide and teach the guests. As Elder Horlacher put it, this is hallowed ground; Carthage is the Crown Jewel of a visitor’s experience when they come to Nauvoo.