March 2019: September 2015

09 Septempber 2015

Dawn and I made puppets to talk with Burton and Roxy. We had dolls at first but then decided to us the puppets to introduce our mission.

Every year at this time we go to the Eastern Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot, ID. Julia, Woody, Val and I spent a day at the fair. The weather was beautiful and the crowds were mild. We enjoyed the Indian horse relay races, food of all kinds and all the exhibits, especially the end of the day couple of stilts. How fun to see all the animals and all the people.

The month of September has been long awaited. We have been packed and ready for our mission to begin. We have taken many things to our home on 13^th street in Idaho Falls in preparation for the move. We have just the essentials at Julia’s home waiting for the move.

In addition to the moving of materials, we have stored the VW, put away the golf clubs, bought our temple clothes, picked up our pills, made all the arrangements for training in Salt Lake City and lastly took in the car to be serviced! OH WELL, Honda called and said the transmission in our 2014 CRV was in need of serious repair. So we had to have a rental car to take to SLC for our training and on return pick up our car one day before we leave for Nauvoo.

The training at the SLC temple was remarkable. Pres. and Sister Walker were our leaders and we had great instruction. Along with the training we were given an extensive tour of the temple to include all levels available to us. Sister Walker was Gordon B Hinkley’s daughter. Her insights were amazing. She is so pleasant and relaxed.

While we were in SLC we stayed at the Radisson hotel, ate at the City Creek Plaza with folks we met at the training center. The Ludwigs are going to the Nauvoo Temple with us. Others were going to Preston England, Philippines, Manhattan New York and Washington DC. One couple were going to Russia to work in the temple.

Once we were back home we swapped out cars and loaded up for our morning travel to Cheyenne, Wy our first stop. It was a long drive but the car worked well. The rain stopped at Rock Springs and then we climbed to Cheyenne. We stayed at the La Quinta motel that night. The next day we traveled another 8 hours to Omaha, Nebraska and stayed at the lovely Hampton Inn. Next beautiful morning we spent 5 hours driving across Iowa onto Ft. Madison and crossed the Mississippi River and on to Nauvoo.

We were greeted by Pres. McAuthor and given a meal. Following the meal we were taken to our apartment (a beautiful spacious place near the temple) The apartment is built of brick in the motif of the colony homes here.

For three days we were given extensive training in the Nauvoo temple for 8 straight hours to exhaustion. The temple is very busy and most of the 6 month missionaries are getting ready to leave during the slow season. During the summer the days are filled with continual endowments, marriages, baptisms and all the ordinances done. July the temple is full constantly. The “Site” missionaries are so busy with dialog at each of the historic sites. The Brinley’s were leaving and gave us their bicycles along with a huge supply of food.

To finish this week we are following a full schedule at the temple and often do not get home before 10:00pm. We have managed to go to Keikuk. Iowa (15 miles away) to get supplies one day. Driving here is enjoyable because it is so beautiful along the river.

Today we drove to Galesburg, Ill. to attend church. Dawn’s grandparents were the first members back in 1911. She was born there and today in Fast and Testimony meeting expressed her feelings of knowing family members were there in attendance. We worked in the primary after the sacrament meeting. On our way home we stopped by the Roby and Cindy Souther’s for lunch. Then this evening we had dinner with the Bornes and Ludwigs.

This has been a glorious start to our mission.

Today we were up early on the last day of the month and jogged for 4 miles in preparation for the run next week end. It was a crisp and beautiful morning as we ran through the farmlands of Illinois.