Wednesday, January 18, 2017 – Rendezvous Rehearsal, Clean the Smith Family Cemetery

Again this morning we had a rehearsal of our part in “Rendezvous” as “George & Agatha” with our director, Sis. Lowe. This time we had fellow cast members with us. Elder Bowler plays the Editor and Elder Lee Master plays the doctor. Both of these characters are in the scenes with George & Agatha. It helps a lot in the rehearsal to be opposite the actual actors we well be on stage with.  It helps with the timing, dialog, blocking and chemistry. We really appreciate them taking time out of their busy day to come rehearse with us. 

This morning’s rehearsal lasted an hour and a half and Sis. Lowe thinks we did very well. In fact she thinks we are ready to have our début next week! We will have another rehearsal on Friday morning and if that rehearsal goes as well as this one, we will be performing a week from today. Aaaah. . . really scary!

The balance of the day we worked at the “Smith Family Cemetery” on the south side of Old Nauvoo on the Community of Christ Church property. Our mission and FM often help the Community of Christ on their grounds keeping and especially maintaining the Smith Family Cemetery. Members of the Community of Christ Church honor and revere the memory of Joseph and Hyrum Smith just like we do. The visitors that come to the Smith Family Cemetery are the very same visitors that come to the historic sites of Old Nauvoo a few blocks north. Our goal is maintain the grounds and keep them beautiful so that all visitors enjoy their experience here, feel the Spirit of Nauvoo and come away with a deeper love of the Savior.

On the grounds of the Smith Family Cemetery we cleared off all of the flowerbeds, hauled away the dead frozen plants and cleaned away leaves. We also trimmed and hauled away branches from some of the bushes in the flowerbeds. Our boss, Richard Hancock worked with us all morning and later he brought Adam Williford, FM’s intern, to help with the leaf removal. They brought the ATV called the “Goat” with its leaf vacuum attachment called “Easy Rake.” It does a great job sucking up leaves. Richard and Adam had to make several trips to the burn pile to dump their loads of leaves. The grounds of the cemetery look 100% better now.