Saturday, August 13, 2016 – Playing with grand-kids, J&W’s Temple Session, Our last “Sunset by the Mississippi”

Today is our P-day but Sis. Johnson and I worked on the grounds for a couple of hours anyway to make up for the time we lost yesterday due to the rain. Later Jacob and Wendy attended a session at the Nauvoo Temple while Sis. Johnson and I watched the grand-kids. It was a pleasant afternoon and we played outside for a while. We had a very nice time with the grand-kids. 

Elder Lasher gave an interesting thought at our prayer meeting before our performance. He told about a family that went to the “Handcart” venue here in historic Nauvoo. They chose to take the long trek of 3 miles with their children. One of the hand cards was pulled by a 13 years old boy with his younger brother and sister. At the end of their handcart experience, Elder Lasher asked the older brother what was the best part of his trek experience? The 13 year old said: “Well, during the trek I got angry at my little sister and yelled at her for not pushing her share of the load. The best part of my trek was how good I felt after I apologized for yelling at her.”  Elder Lasher concluded: “When you apologize, you don’t change the past. But you do change the future.” Good words of wisdom. 

Tonight was our last Performance of the variety show “Sunset by the Mississippi.” For the past four and a half months Sis. Johnson and I have been in rehearsals or performances twice a week. We started the week we arrived on our mission in Illinois and we’ve been singing and dancing in “Sunset by the Mississippi” ever since. In the beginning we were a little overwhelmed and nervous but with time and practice we’ve come to love and anticipate with pleasure each night’s performance.

 

We’ve really enjoyed performing with the YPM’s (Young Performing Missionaries). These young Elders and Sisters are all high energy performers. They are all talented and very skilled as they sing, dance and play musical instruments, not to mention all of them are great actors and actresses.  We’ve grown to love and appreciate each one of them over the past four months. Now that the busy summer season in Nauvoo is ending, all of the YPM’s will be heading home next week. We will miss them a lot; we’ve really enjoyed performing with them.

We will miss “Sunset by the Mississippi.” But in 8 months we will start the whole process all over again as we prepare for a new season. In the mean time we will still get to perform in “Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo” twice a week. “Rendezvous” is another show we’ve come to love and anticipate performing in with pleasure.

 After “Sunset by the Mississippi” was over, we stayed and watched BYU’s renowned A Cappella group, Vocal Point. They combined harmony, humor, and remarkable vocal percussion into a thrilling show. They were great. This too, was their last show. On Monday Vocal Point will return to Utah and fall classes at BYU.