Thursday, August 31, 2017 – Update on Sis. Johnson, Lyon Drug & Herb Garden, Jacob Weiler Historic Home

UPDATE ON SISTER JOHNSON – Sis. Johnson is doing much, much better. Today she even put in a hard morning of work with the rest of us.  She still has some swelling, burning and a lot of itching but she isn’t in any pain. Each day since the wasps attacked she has found dozens more stings on her skin. Interestingly these new discoveries are all very small and minor in nature, almost like the wasp that stung her didn’t use much venom. I don’t know if wasps can control the amount of venom they inject but this is another little Nauvoo Miracle. During and after the attack, Sis. Johnson has been very blessed and protected.  

This weekend is the annual Nauvoo Grape festival. It’s a big event and the crowds will be very large. For us too, the mission is expecting better than normal visits to the historic sites. In preparation for the larger crowds, all of us on the FM grounds crew have been working hard weeding and cleaning all of the “High Profile” locations and historic sites. We want to put our best foot forward and have everything look as nice as possible for this community event.  

We started in the back half of Herb Gardens of the Lyon Drug. Last week we cleaned the front half so we didn’t have to spend all morning there but there are always a lot of weeds to pull and I don’t think we will never really be finished. 

Next we weeded and cleaned the William Gheen home, the Yearsley home and we finished up at a new house we’ve not done before, the Jacob Weiler House.

The Jacob Weiler house is significant because it is right on the main highway into Nauvoo and the front is seen be every passing car that comes into town. Richard has a plan this fall for new flowerbeds and that applies to the Jacob Weiler house too. We pulled out the old past bloom iris plants and weeds and replanted  the front of the house with a beautiful variety of perennial flowers that will enhance the beauty of the main highway into Nauvoo.

 We finished mulching the Jacob Weiler home after lunch and the flowerbeds, the house and grounds all look a lot better. This new flowerbed will be a nice “Welcome” sign as visitors enter Nauvoo.

There was a bad accident in the mission this morning. Elder Wayment is one of the Teamsters that works with the horses. While moving the horses this morning, one of the horses was spooked, knocked him down and trampled him. He was flown to Iowa City.  He has a fractured vertebrae, broken ribs, and a hematoma on his sternum.  He has been put in ICU to be monitored. He and Sister Wayment are in need of all of our prayers. 

Wednesday, August 30, 2017 – Visitor’s Center New Flowerbed, Sis. Johnson’s Flowers

REPORT ON SIS. JOHNSON - Sis. Johnson slept through the night well in spite of the tremendous pain in her head and on her scalp. She stayed home from work today and rested. This afternoon she was feeling much better and received a pleasant surprise. The driver from the Hy-Vee Florist in Fort Madison delivered a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers to our home. They were sent by our son and daughter-in-law, Nathan and Valerie and their family. Wow, Sis. Johnson was surprised. Thank you so much for your thoughtful gift, it brightened her day. Sis. Johnson loves to receive flowers.

And speaking of Sis. Johnson saying “Thank You.” Sis. Johnson has received an overwhelming number of expressions of support, prayers, well wishes and even food. To all of you who have been so thoughtful, Sis. Johnson wants to give each of you a whole hearted “Thank You.” She appreciates your love and concern on her behalf.

Sis. Johnson wants all of you to know that she is feeling much better now. In fact all of the pain from the stings is gone! However she still has a lot of swelling, itching and burning. And those things really are “A Pain.” Each sting site is very sensitive to the touch. But she is 100% better today than yesterday. She is on the mend and recovering much faster than anticipated. Another one of those small “Nauvoo Miracles” and an answer to prayer.

 

Today at work we did a lot. The most significant project was planting a brand new flowerbed on the south side of the Visitor’s Center. The area used to contain a hedge of bushes that were badly overgrown and blocked the view of the Women’s Garden from inside the Visitor’s Center. Now all of the bushes are gone and a beautiful flowerbed is enhancing the view from the Visitor’s Center windows. 

Yesterday, Louie Hernandez and his crew used the small backhoe and pulled all of the bushes out of the ground roots and all. Next the whole area was rototilled to loosen up the soil and the flowerbed was prepped for today’s planting.

Richard set out a lot of his new hybrid, specialty grasses along with perennial Echinacea and Gaillardia for us to plant. Then we put a layer of mulch on the soil around all of the new plants and the whole area looks great now.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017 – Visitor’s Center Pots & Islands, Marilyn Day Winn, Bakery, Cultural Hall, Lyon Drug, Cambre House, Wasp Encounter

We worked hard all day and were very productive, even though we ended on a stinging note; (More on the wasps later.) we still got a lot done. We started by moving the potted grasses out from under the shade cloth out into the open with full sun; even though the sun didn’t come out from behind the fog bank until 11:00AM again today. The hybrid ornamental grasses will be planted tomorrow in the new garden on the south side of the Visitor’s Center. 

While we were working at the Visitor’s Center this morning I had another one of those chance meetings that seem to happen often here in Nauvoo. A stranger came to me to thank us for the beautiful gardens. She said she was from Pinetop – Lakeside Arizona. I said, then maybe you knew my brother-in-law, Victor Wilson (Colbath)?  Oh my gosh, she knew him, dated him, had a crush on him in high school, and considered my sister to be the luckiest girl in the world for landing him. I explained that Victor passed away last December from heart disease, Sis. Johnson and I got to fly home for the funeral. We had a wonderful conversation for several minutes. I love these chance encounters with strangers we have so much in common with, it truly is a small world.

 The rest of the morning we worked in the Visitor’s Center, the Scovil Bakery, the Cultural Hall and the Lyon Drug. As I said we were very productive and got a lot of weeding, cleaning and deadheading done. We didn’t finish at the Lyon drug because the grounds are so extensive. Maybe later in the week we will finish.

After lunch we went with Richard to the Cambre House up on the bluff. The exterior is scheduled to be repainted and all of the weeds and volunteer trees had to be removed away from the sides of the house. Evidently this house doesn’t get much care because the “Rogue Trees” were so large and established we had to use the saw to cut them down instead of the hand pruners.

Next we went across the street to the “White” house to cut down large “Rogue Trees” and that is when the stinging started. One of the limbs landed next to Sis. Johnson and unbeknownst to us, there was a “Burrowing Wasp” nest hole in the ground and the wasps came out by the hundreds! Sis. Johnson was literally standing right on top of the wasp nest entrance. She was instantly enveloped in a cloud of hundreds of angry wasps.

The wasps flew up her pant legs and stung her on the legs and ankles. They swarmed all around her head and stung her multiple times on the face, neck and scalp. She ran screaming for help but there was no place to hide. When she stopped several hundred feet away we thought we had eluded the wasps and we were safe. Unfortunately not, that’s when the final wasp stung her right through her clothing on her derriere!  

Richard assisted me in giving Sis. Johnson a Priesthood blessing and we were off to the Nauvoo Clinic only 4 blocks away. I need to emphasis what a traumatic experience this was. If Sis. Johnson wasn’t in shock she should have been. She was in so much pain she could hardly walk. Each of the sting points would re-erupt in pain as if she was being stung again in the same place. And maybe she was being re-stung because at the clinic one of the wasps came out of her clothing. At home another was in her shoe.

The doctor examined Sis. Johnson and all vitals were stable and normal. That was an answer to prayer. She was given a shot of Antihistamine (Benadryl) to make sure she didn’t go into anaphylactic shock. Over the counter pain medication like Advil was recommended.

 Back at home we tried to count all of the sting points but it was impossible to count the number of stings in the scalp. It as too painful for Sis. Johnson to have her hair parted or even touched. I am sure she was stung at least 8 times but counting the scalp she may have been stung 12 or 15 times.

The fact that she was stung so few times was a real miracle. I personally saw the cloud of wasps surrounding her head and considering how many there were she should have been stung hundreds of times. For that little “Nauvoo miracle” she was truly blesses. Tonight while I went to “Rendezvous” she was resting comfortably. She should be able to resume her normal activities in a day or two.

Monday, August 28, 2017 – Jared Willyerd, Brown House, Browning Gun, Family Living Center

This morning the spiritual thought was given by FM’s Paint Shop Director, Jared Willyerd. He showed us a broken piece of old wood that was rotted, discolored, deteriorating and had nail holes all over it. Bro. Willyerd said that his old broken, rotted worthless piece of wood was on its way to the garbage to be thrown away. He explained that “In the master’s hand” the old piece of wood could be shaped into something nice, something useful. 

That’s when Bro. Willyerd pulled out a couple of ball point ink pens. He held them for everyone to see as he explained, he used the old discarded wood to make the barrel of the ink pens. In the master’s had the wood was turned on a lathe, cut, shaped, sanded, finished and polished. Now the old piece of wood is a useful thing of beauty.

 

Bro. Willyerd went on to draw the analogy between our hardships and trials that have made us broken and useless. But the touch of the Master’s Hand can restore each of us to a useful, functioning part of our Heavenly Father’s Kingdom. 

 

Bro. Willyerd went on to explain that the old broken and discolored piece of wood weren’t just any pieces of wood. The 170 year old rotted boards in the leaky roof of the Carthage Jail made the roof unsafe. The whole roof had to be removed and replaced. When the old roof was torn off, the old boards were being sent to the trash.  Bro. Willyerd and others rescued the old wood and made useful object of memorabilia out of them like picture frames, clock faces and ink pen barrels. As a gift, Bro. Willyerd gave Sis. Johnson and I one of the ink pens he made using the old discarded Carthage Jail Wood.

This morning and afternoon was a very productive work day. We weeded, deadheaded, blew and cleaned the Women’s Garden, the Visitor’s Center, the sidewalks and flowerbeds at Browning Gun and the Family Living Center.

 

Sunday, August 27, 2017 – Sunday Talks by Mortensen’s, Priesthood Lesson by Elder Beecher, District Dinner, Elder Lowe’s Piano Concert

This morning’s sacrament meeting talks were exceptional. All three speakers had the same theme: Testimony. They were all great talks. 

Equally as impressive were the lessons given by Elder and Sister Beecher in Priesthood meeting and Relief Society respectively. Their lessons were both taken from last April’s General Conference talk by Elder Holland: “Songs, Sung and Unsung.” Both Sis. Johnson and I were asked to take a part and speak for five minutes on our experience in the Dominican Republic and how it related to the question: How we can help solve the problem of economic inequality in the world. 

I could have spoken on this subject for an hour but both Sis. Johnson and I managed to keep our comments under 8 minutes. Other class members were also asked to answer questions on mental health, racism and violence. Each one of these topics deserved a full class by itself but everyone did a great job and we managed to stay within the class time period. As I said, today’s lessons were very good.

This evening we had our monthly district meeting and dinner at our house. We had a wonderful dinner with our district members that seem like family to us now. It is so much fun to eat together, talk, relax and enjoy each other’s company, and even conduct a little District business too. Unfortunately Sis. Johnson and I only have two District meetings & dinners left before we go home November first.

After our District dinner and meeting everyone headed over to the theater in the Visitor’s Center to listen to one of our Senior missionaries give a piano concert. I had no idea that Elder Phillip Lowe was a concert pianist! He asked permission to bring out the Steinway Grand Piano.  He played a selection of pieces from the Classical & Romantic eras by Beethoven, Shopin, Bach, etc. I wish you could have heard the music pouring out of that Steinway! It was a great evening of music and entertainment that we will remember and treasure for a long time.