Wednesday, October 11, 2017 – Mission Trg. Mtg., New Arrivals & Departing Missionaries, Walnut Removal, Site Cleaning

Our weekly Mission Training Meeting this morning was great on a couple of levels. First, Pres. Hall did a super job teaching us.  1) The Illinois Nauvoo Mission Statement, 2) Mission Objective and 3) Mission Purpose. Of course we’ve had these three things taught in the past and we are very familiar with them. What made this morning’s training outstanding was the in-depth analysis tied to the historical perspective here in Old Nauvoo.  Well done Pres. Hall!

This morning’s meeting was also significant because we welcomed Elder & Sis. Corder to the Mission. They are the newest missionaries in the mission; they arrived last week. Both Elder & Sis. Corder have been assigned to work at FM. In fact Sis. Corder worked with us on our grounds crew one day last week as she received her orientation and familiarized herself with all that goes on in FM.

And finally, this morning’s meeting was bitter sweet because we had to sing, “Farewell Nauvoo” to three of our friends we’ve grown to love. Elder & Sis. Walker as well as Sis. Alderton will be leaving the mission for home in the next few days. We will miss them a lot and our love, best wishes and prayers go with them as they journey home to their families.  

Today at work we continued picking up the Locust Pods that are all over the Women’s Garden. We removed a lot last week with the leaf blowers but today we got the rest the lawn mowers couldn’t suck up and bag. By the time we finished our trailer was half full of pods. 

 The rest of the day was spent picking up Walnuts and cleaning historic sites and homes. The family that comes to Nauvoo to harvest Walnuts can’t possibly get to all of them so we have to pick them up around the high traffic areas around Old Nauvoo. Especially in some of the parking areas the Walnuts get crushed by car tires and they leave an ugly mess for the visitors to see and walk through.

Tonight Sis. Johnson and I got to perform the “George & Agatha” vignette in “Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo” for two shows. For the past week we’ve had several tour buses in town so some of the evenings there have been two shows. Tonight’s second show marked the 49^th time Sis. Johnson and I have performed “George & Agatha.” But our days on the stage are numbered; we only have two more weeks were we will get to be “George & Agatha.”

It seems odd to have so many large tour buses in town so long after the busy summer season is over. Well, it turns out there is a good reason October is popular with the tour companies that offer “Mormon History tours.” First they miss the huge crowds of July and second they advertise that in October the trees will be in their fall colors.