Friday, May 5, 2017 – Elder Berry, Elder Aina, Family Living Center Cleaning and Tours, Community of Christ flowerbeds, Lyon Drug & Richard’s Arbor

Today is Elder Berry’s last day of work at FM. He has had many duties with FM, the most recent being heavy equipment operator. He was honored at our FM Prayer Meeting this morning with the customary FM Farewell flag/pennant. Elder & Sis. Berry are concluding a 23 month mission and they have been great servants of the Lord and our good friends. We wish them a safe trip home.

All week the assigned topic for the FM Prayer Meeting spiritual thought has been on Agency. Today it was Elder Aina’s turn to give the Spiritual message. We can always count on Elder Aina to do something different and special. This morning instead of speaking he sang his message. Elder Aina has a rich and mellow singing voice. He sang acapella the hymn: “Know This, That Ev'ry Soul is Free” hymn #240. Wow, what a treat, I could listen to him sing all day. Good message and a great song Elder Aina!

1. Know this, that ev'ry soul is free

To choose his life and what he'll be;

For this eternal truth is giv'n:

That God will force no man to heav'n.

2. He'll call, persuade, direct aright,

And bless with wisdom, love, and light,

In nameless ways be good and kind,

But never force the human mind.

This hymn was included in the first LDS hymnbook in 1835.

Today our work day started at the FLC, “Family Living Center.” Sis. Johnson, Emilie Roper, Constance Skog and I pulled weeds most of the morning. Our goal is to get all of the flowerbeds all over Old Nauvoo looking their best for all of the bus loads of students arriving daily. When we finished at the FLC the grounds and flowerbeds looked much better.

 With the warmer weather the “Pokeweed” and volunteer Chestnut trees have been coming up everywhere. I used my shovel and without much effort, I was able to get them all out of the ground taproot and all. Pokeweed is a real monster, if left unchecked it will grow 12 to 15 feet tall and overwhelm everything else in the flowerbed. Today I was killing Pokeweed with great enthusiasm, I love killing Pokeweed!

In the spirit of cooperation with our Neighbors, The Community of Christ Church and historic sites, today we cleaned a couple of their flowerbeds in the “Smith Family Cemetery.” The cemetery is very special to both of our churches. It is the final resting place of Joseph Smith, His brother Hyrum, Joseph’s wife Emma as well as Joseph Smith’s parents, Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. In a couple of weeks we will be back to plant their flowerbeds full of beautiful annual flowers.

Our final cleaning project was the flowerbeds in the Lyon Drug herb garden. This is a very large garden with multiple flowerbeds. It will take us a long time to completely finish cleaning everything that needs cleaning there.

 

Kyle Johnson’s Mission Announcement on FaceBook:

Kyle Johnson

Friday, May 5, 2017 2:00PM

Happy to report that I have been called to serve in the Illinois Nauvoo mission as a Young Church Service Missionary. I report on June 1st. We will have a farewell gathering at my home on May 21st 6pm to 8pm. All are invited. Hope to see you there!

Planting our last three flowerbeds at our home:

After work today Sis. Johnson and I went home and worked an additional 3 hours on our back porch, our seedlings and planted the final 3 flowerbeds at our house. There are 2 flower beds in the front yard by the front door and one large flowerbed on the back of the building facing east.