Wednesday, September 06, 2017 – Mission Trg. Mtg., “Farewell Nauvoo,” Elder Wayment, Clean W.Gdn. Statues, The Yearsley House

This morning at our weekly Mission Training Meeting we greeted the newest two Senior Couples to the Mission. The Schmitt’s and the Jensen’s. Both couples will be serving in FM. We also said our final goodbye’s to eight Senior Couples and two single missionaries. This whole group of missionaries are the ones that arrived just two weeks before Sis. Johnson and I arrived on April 1,^, 2016. We’ve known this day was coming but now it’s finally here and it was particularly hard to sing our traditional farewell song, “Farewell Nauvoo.” It is particularly difficult because they have become such good friends and we know that for many of them, this will be the last time we get to see them in this lifetime.

 Good news at the beginning of our training meeting. Once we were all in our places Elder Wayment walked in with his wife. His entrance into the meeting took us all by surprise but we all stood and gave him a big long round of applause.  He was wearing a neck brace because of his cracked vertebrae but he had a big smile and he looked in great spirits. It was great to see him at our meeting this morning especially considering his accident happened only a week ago this morning.

Our first assignment this morning was to work with Elder & Sis. Williams (from our District) to clean the statues in the Women’s Garden. Two or three times a week Sis. Johnson and I are in the Women’s Garden cleaning the flowerbeds and sidewalks but the assignment to clean the statues comes through our District Leaders. The statues are not difficult to clean. There is almost never any bird droppings so that’s a good thing. But there are always tons of spider webs all over them that need to be clean off. 

The rest of our work day was preparing another one of the old historic home flowerbeds for renovation and a new planting of specialty grasses and perennial flowers. This time we did the “Yearsley House” in Old Nauvoo. David and Mary Ann Yearsley's home is located on the northwest corner of Partridge and White streets. David and Mary Ann were born, raised and married in Pennsylvania, David and Mary Ann had eight children. They learned of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and traveled to Nauvoo to learn more. They were baptized into the church in 1841.

The Yearsleys were relatively well off financially and very generous with their means. David died on his way west at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in 1849. Mary Ann continued on to Utah, established a home and lived to her 90s.

The Yearsleys were relatively well off financially and very generous with their means. David died on his way west at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in 1849. Mary Ann continued on to Utah, established a home and lived to her 90s.