Sunday, April 30, 2017 – Sacrament Meeting, Elder Aina -The Lord’s Prayer, District Meeting

The theme of this morning’s Sacrament Meeting was “Prayer.” Each of the speakers gave exceptionally good talks all on prayer. They told stories that illustrated the power of prayer and quoted General Authorities. I particularly liked Sis. Mary Jane Sims statements when she said: “Get on your knees and ask what you need to do. Then get on your feet and do what you were told to do.” 

The meeting’s theme was punctuated by a musical solo between the speakers. Elder Aina is a native Hawaiian and he has a beautiful and powerful voice. Before he sang his solo at the pulpit, he quoted the Lord’s Prayer in Hawaiian from memory. That would have been enough but then he sang “The Lord’s Prayer” (in English) with his rich beautiful voice. It brought tears to my eyes as it did to many others in the congregation. I wish there was a way to bottle the music and the spirit of the meeting and take it with me everywhere.

This evening we had our monthly District Meeting and dinner at the Spradlin’s home. For dinner Sis. Spradlin made enchiladas with a separate dish of less spicy enchiladas just for Sis. Johnson and I. Oh wow, they were Mmmm-Goood! Thank you Sis. Spradlin for a wonderful meal.

Tonight at our District Meeting we were introduced to the newest members of our district, Elder & Sis. Wayment. They are from Ogden Utah. They arrived in the mission a couple of weeks ago and will be a great addition to our District. Welcome Elder Glynn and Sis. Chyrrl Wayment.

Jay Wilson’s FaceBook post Sunday evening 4-30-2017:

Well tomorrow Kristin and I start a new chapter in our lives we are now business owners. We purchased Western Auto in Baker City Oregon from Charlie he has successfully run that store for 40 years. But it has come time for him to retire. We won't be called Western Auto anymore we have changed the name to Appliances and More We are really excited and a little bit scared LOL. But I'm sure we will do just fine I will still be working on the ambulance part-time so I'm not letting my paramedic skills go to waste. The best part is next week Whirlpool is flying us to Chicago for some training. But when we get back we will hit the ground running.

Saturday, April 29, 2017 – Sis. Witbeck, Rain

This morning Sis. Witbeck came over to our house to work with Sis. Johnson and put flower decorations on her Rendezvous bonnet. They had a good time designing and arranging the silk flowers. Sis. Johnson  and Sis. Witbeck with the hot glue gun did a remarkable job. Even though the pioneer women of the 1840’s didn’t have silk flowers and hot glue guns, Sis. Witbeck will look great on stage with her new bonnet.

Today it rained almost all day. And it wasn’t a light drizzle but a good strong rain and at times a very heavy and strong rain. We had to go shopping in it and we found ourselves dashing to and from the car trying not to get wet. It was an adventure. 

When we left for our “Rendezvous” show this evening my rain gauge had over an inch and a half in it. That’s a lot of rain. This evening the national weather service issued a “River Flood Warning” for the Mississippi River and local tributaries. 

Friday, April 28, 2017 –Acclimating plants, Rain & Coleus, Geranium Rooted Cuttings, Brick Yard

Our first task this morning was to move more plants out of the greenhouses to the shaded benches for acclimating. We filled up several more benches with plants but there is still a little room left for more next week. 

Since it rained most of the day we didn’t get to work on the grounds or plant any flowers. Instead we worked in the greenhouses trimming back the Coleus plants and giving them a “Haircut.” These Coleus plants will be held back as next year’s “Stock Plants.” They will be used to obtain cuttings from for the following spring. Next winter thousands and thousands of cuttings will come off of these plants.

We finished the day harvesting cuttings off of the Geraniums “Stock” plants. We only cut three shoots from each parent plant to propagate new geraniums. Each Geranium plant is unique with its own name, leaf pattern & foliage scent and flower pattern & color. The flowers are brilliant with color and the foliage is very fragrant.

In the afternoon during our free time we volunteered to help in the “Brick Yard” making bricks. Elder Hughes and Elder Ercanbrack were the tour guides while we were there. They helped us make bricks and set the type to be imprinted on the bricks.

 

While we were in the Brick Yard the kiln had just been fired up with a full load of bricks. The kiln will take a couple of days to bake the bricks completely. The temperature inside the kiln gets up to 2100 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Thursday, April 27, 2017 – Tulip Beds at Carthage Visitor’s Center, Unloaded Greenhouses, Perennial flowerbeds at Visitor’s Center

This morning we had the big tulip pulling service project at the Carthage Visitor’s Center. We arrived early and got set up in anticipation of 12 to 15 volunteers coming out to help and they did. We had a very good turnout. 

Everyone pitched in and worked hard. We started at 9:00am and we were cleaned up, swept up, packed up and on the road by 10:30. As a reward for their service, everyone got a bag of tulip bulbs to take home if they wanted. 

Back in Nauvoo, we unloaded several tables of plants out of the greenhouses and transferred them to the outdoor tables under the shade cloth. Outdoors they can start to acclimate, get used to the cold nights and extra sunshine or wind and rain as the case may be.  Yesterday we had .38 inches of rain and the day before we had .85 inches. The forecast for Friday and Saturday is more of the same, 90% chance of rain on both days.

Our final project for the day was planting 4” potted plants in the perennial flower gardens on the north side of the Visitor’s Center and in the Women’s Garden. We planted hundreds of plants in about a dozen varieties.

 

There are already quite a few different plants in bloom in the perennial flower beds, like Peony, Dianthus and a couple varieties of Lily I don’t know the names of.  The new plants we planted today will bloom later and have the effect of staggering the spring and summer parade of blossoms. These flowerbeds are looking great and will keep looking great as new varieties continue to bloom over the next few months.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 – Mission Training Meeting, New Arrivals, School Bus Tours, Planting Columbine in Women’s Garden, Elder & Sis. Van Horn as Noah & Sophia

This morning in our weekly Mission Training Meeting we were introduced to the 13 new Senior Couples that arrived in the mission last Friday. They are excited and enthusiastic to say the least. They will be a great addition to our mission. We are only expecting six more couple to arrive in May, one in June and ten YSM (Young Single Sister Missionaries). This will complete the mission’s full complement of Senior couples, Single Sisters and Young Sister missionaries. 

During our training meeting Pres. Hall gave us the School Tour Schedule for the next two weeks of the local schools. Since I don’t work in the Historic Site on week days, I was surprised to see the list and how many school bus loads of kids are coming. There will be 9 buses of school kids arriving during the last week of April and the first week of May. There will be a lot more through the remainder of May and into June.

When a tour guide is leading a group of students from one of the local schools the mission has a directive to make our tours non-religious. That is, we can’t use the name of Jesus Christ, the name of our church or any other religious terminology. Even the early Latter-day Saints of Nauvoo are only referred to as “Pioneers.” But that is OK because the excited children go home and tell their parents what a great place Nauvoo is. Then they bring their whole family back to tour Historic Nauvoo. It’s a win-win situation.

We put in another full day of work in the Women’s Garden again today. We started by pulling wild onions out of another large flowerbed. After a few minutes of pulling onions my hands smell like I was at a 4^th of July BBQ slicing onions for hamburgers. It kind of made me hungry even though I don’t like raw onions. 

Now that the large flowerbeds had all of the wild onions removed we planted a variety of Columbine plants from 3” pots. There are already some Columbine plants left over from last year in bloom. These new plants will really add to the color and stagger the crop of blossoms. These flowerbeds are going to be beautiful.

Our last job of the day was to pull the last of the tulip bulbs in the last of the flowerbeds in the Women’s Garden. And, as usual there were missionaries helping themselves to the bulbs in our trailer before we headed to the compost pile.  In the end, I don’t think there will be a single tulip bulb left to turn into compost. They are being picked up and taken to new homes as fast as we can dig them.

 The only place left with tulip bulbs is at the Carthage Visitor’s Center. Tomorrow morning we will be out there with a large crew and a dozen volunteers to pull all of them.  

This evening in our “Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo” show our good friends, Elder & Sis. Van Horn had their debut as “Noah & Sophia.” There are always a few nerves and stage fright during anyone’s debut but the Van Horn’s gave a great performance. They hit all their lines and cues and the vignette came off without a hitch. Good job Elder & Sis. Van Horn.