Thursday, January 05, 2017 – Back to work, Snow Removal, Snow Blowing, Conservation Room Artifacts

Sis. Johnson and I are glad to be back in Nauvoo serving on our mission again. And, even though it was 10 degrees when we left for work, it feels good to be working and serving again. I may be a “desert rat” but I love the cold and the snow, strange as that sounds.  

It snowed overnight, so the top priority for FM is making the sidewalks safe for guests, staff and missionaries. All of the departments at FM have specific snow removal assignments after a snow storm. Since Sis. Johnson and I are under the “Grounds Keeping” department, our assignment is to clear away all of the snow on the sidewalks at the Visitor’s Center and the Women’s Garden. 

 

If we had used handheld snow shovels the task of clearing away all of the snow on the sidewalks at the Visitor’s Center and the Women’s Garden would have taken all day, but leaf blowers do a marvelous job of snow removal. It was cold (14 degrees outside) but it was a lot of fun blowing snow. It only took us about an hour.

 

Since there are no other outdoor projects Sis. Johnson and I can do in the cold and snow; we spent the rest of our day working with Elder Walker in the artifact conservation room. This job is fun and interesting too. We enjoy our time cataloging, recording and bagging the artifacts geologist dug up 45 years ago.

We had another helper today in the artifacts room. Jared Willyerd is the paint department supervisor at FM and we got to work with him for a while. Bro. Willyerd is particularly interested in the historic value of the artifacts and he has a keen interest in the paints that were used in Old Nauvoo. Today he was collecting samples of the old paint to take to a workshop in Davenport, Iowa where the paint samples will be analyzed. Sounds like fun, the results will be interesting.