Saturday, December 10, 2016 – Clean Stake Center, Ward Christmas Party Scenery, Shopping for Warm Gloves, Ice on the Mississippi, Temple

This month our District is assigned to clean the Stake Center every Saturday morning. While we were there we noticed the cultural hall was completely set up for the Nauvoo 1^st & 3^rd Ward’s Christmas parties. One ward on Friday night and the other Ward on Saturday night. The scenery, props and facades in the cultural hall were amazing. I found out from Elder Van Horn that they were all made in the last two weeks by a member of one of the wards. He used FM’s wood shop to make everything. It is fantastic.

Almost as fantastic as the décor was the system the two wards use for their ward Christmas parties. Both Wards meet together to coordinate everything. They plan their Ward parties to be on the same weekend.  They share the same scenery so the Ward that has Friday night does all of the set up. The Ward that has Saturday night does all of the take-down and cleanup. The Saturday night Ward members serve at the Friday night’s Ward Party and vise versa. What a great system and great cooperation.

Sis. Johnson and I went shopping for P-day at the “Farm and Home” store in Fort Madison, IA. Their target customers are farmers and hunters. They have a large selection of warm work clothes, warm head gear and both Sis. Johnson & I needed warm work gloves. It is tough for two “Desert Rats” to live in the “Frozen Mid-west” and come prepared with the right warms clothes. But we have what we need now thanks to the Farm and Home store.

On our drive to Fort Madison, IA we get to cross the Mississippi River. The scene was very picturesque as the freeze line goes quite a way out into the river. At some places it even looks like white capped waves were frozen in place. Even so we saw plenty of water fowl on the part of the river that is still unfrozen.

 

To cap off a perfect P-day, this afternoon we attended the 3:00pm endowment session at the Nauvoo Temple. We went early so we would get home before it got cold and dark. Wrong! We left the Temple at about 5:10pm and it was completely dark. The wind was howling and the bone chilling “feels like” temperature must have been below zero. You’ve never seen two “Old People” run so fast to their car!

 

In spite of the cold we got to enjoy the spirit of the Temple and perform initiatory and endowments for a couple of family names sent to us from back home. We love to attend the Temple.