Sunday July 20 -The Pageants have been going since the 8th. The weather has been beautiful.  It did rain one night on the Nauvoo Pageant. They are well done and wonderful to watch. The British pageant is such a treat with all the British and Scottish accents, the folk dancing and reminders of our heritage. 

So here is a typical week in Nauvoo for a single sister site missionary.

Sun. 8 am
 Sacrament meeting at the chapel. Super talks by senior missionaries and Young Performing Missionaries. Dismiss. Hurry to Visitors Center for Sunday School and Relief Society. Lessons taught by missionaries.

Come home from church. Eat dinner and get dressed in site clothes i.e. pioneer dress, slip and apron and name tag, always the name tag. Today is a white apron.  Some times it is a colored apron. I get to serve at the Lucy Mack Smith house 12:15 pm to 5. You remember Luck Mack Smith is Joseph Smiths mother. She lost all but one of her eight son's before she died.
My companion Sis. Layne on the other hand has the day off. This is the first Sun. we haven't served together.
   Sister Olsen (S.Sis. Miss. age 82) wants to have folks over for supper. Sister Layne will take pot luck at 5 pm.  I will come in pioneer dress as soon as I get off.

7 pm Sociable (Fireside) put on by BYU Synthesis Band and Contemporary dancers.
 Awesome. Very spiritual.

Come home. Check the e-mail. Go to bed.

Mon. 7:30 am  Get up. Catch some breakfast. Have a prayer with companion. We don't    always say morning prayers together. Depends on who's going where when.
Today I have late shift 11:45 am to 6 pm. so I go out to work in the yard. Mow the edges the big mowers didn't get the day before and add some dirt to the sand the flowers have been trying to grow in. Notice the zucchini I planted is growing a baby, (squash that is). As I finally get this ready to post we have harvested two good sized zuccinnis and the cucumbers are about 2 inches long.

Also growing in our 1 1/2 ft. by 10 ft. garden along the garage are, carrots, cucumbers, green onions, cosmos, & zinnias (2).

Come in, shower get ready, go to serve at Family Living Center. There I will talk about making candles and the light of Christ, making fabric and yarn and having patience while making a fine finished project, and making bread in a brick oven, which bread is like the words of Christ which words are also the bread of life. I also get to sew on rug rags which will be used on the looms to make rugs for the floors in the restored houses.

Tonight at 6:15 pm we need to be over to the outdoor stage just East of the Visitor's Center where we will perform in the variety show known as "Sunset by the Mississippi". We put this show on with the young performing missionaries while they are here.  When they leave we will cease to put on Sunset.

Tues. is preparation day.  This month we don't have a performance in the evening so we can go farther for a road trip. So far we have gone to Springfield to the Lincoln Museum, to the Mark Twain home town of Hannibal, Mo., to Kalona, an Amish/Mendonite town which is all about quilts, and this week we are going to the Duncan Indian Mounds, East of here.

Wed. is 8 am training meeting. Part of the meeting is a wonderful talk about unity and harmony and how it is the way things should be in nature, in our lives, in our bodies, in our mission.

After training I am to serve at Lucy Mack Smith C shift (8:45 to 12 ) and then come back at 3 pm and work until 6pm.  Sister Layne is at the Brigham Young House shift A, which is 8:45 to 3 pm. We generally take some lunch with us.

Be at the Cultural Hall by 6:30 In performance dress, to warm up and be ready for Rendezvous performance. We will do two shows  back to back: one at 7:00 pm and another again at 8:15 pm. Some nights I have a speaking part and some I do not.

Thurs. Go to the Post Office on the B shift, 11:45 am to 6:00 pm.  Here we tell about how the mail worked in the 1840's here in Nauvoo. Letters with no envelopes, no return addresses, no stamps, and which have been cross written.

Perform Sunset again at 6:15.

Fri.  Go to Heber C Kimball's house on the A shift (8:45am to 3:00pm). Here we tell about he and his great grandson, Dr. Leroy Kimball who was actually the one who got the whole "Restore Nauvoo" ball rolling.
Heber C. was a great missionary and could likely have converted your English relatives.

Sat.  Spend the day at the Nauvoo Visitors Center, greeting guests. The shift today is from 7:15am to 1:00pm  We will spend the time telling what's available to do in Nauvoo, showing them around the Visitors Center, and helping them get plans made for what to see while they are in Nauvoo. There are a couple movies to see, and the play, The Promise is put on by the YPM's at the VC, but they must make a plan of when they want to see the other plays and go on the Carriage and Wagon Rides.  Those require tickets which must be reserved at the tickets and tours desk.
 
Rendezvous again tonight.

And then it is Sunday again. Whew the week has flown by

It is raining in Nauvoo today. It has been raining all day.  It is a good thing for all the plants and the corn, but the visitors are having a hard time not getting wet.  When you come to Nauvoo be sure to bring umbrellas for your crew because although the temperatures are usually comfortable there will be lots of wetness to dodge. The historical sites open at 9 am everyday even Sunday. We go to church and then are off to host at the sites.  I guess I may have told you that before.

At the beginning of the month our schedules rotated. Each of the three senior missionary performing casts, rotate days of the week on which they perform Rendezvous, and Sunset.  Last month our preparation day and one of our (meaning my companion and I) performance days were on the same day. This month the evening of our preparation day is free. Since this is the case we are going to travel to some of the other places of interest in the area.

Tuesday last we drove down to Springfield, Il. where Abraham Lincoln was raised. There we saw the great interpretive museum, where we spent several hours.  We could have stayed a while longer but the place closes down at 5 pm. We went out a few blocks away to the "neighborhood" where Lincolns home is, walking around the houses because they too were closed.  During the day time the houses have tours much like we have here in Nauvoo.

Oh, the temple bell is ringing. For several weeks I thought the bell I heard was on one of the several churches that dot the streets in this tiny town.  Then someone finally told me that the bell is in the tower of the temple.  It rings on the hour.

Well, on with my story. After leaving Lincoln's "neighborhood" we went to find the Lincoln Memorial at the cemetery.  We arrived just in time for checking out the men and women dressed in 1860's dress,  and to watch as a troop of Union Soldiers retired the flag for the evening. They came complete with black powder rifles, bugler and drummer boy. Very moving!!  Before the ceremony two of those dressed in costumes were out behind the monument giving a narration about the assassination and funeral of Pres. Lincoln. The day was very much worth the 2 1/2 hr. drive.

Our trip home late Tues. night was kind of scarey for we drove into a terrible thunder storm.

This next week when Tues. rolls around we will take off down to Hannibal to see what we can learn about Mark Twain.  Not quite so far but almost.

This week I have been assigned to the Pendelton Log School, The Seventys Hall, (which was the first MTC), the Bakery, the Post Office, (where you can learn about crosswriting your letters to save paper), the John Taylor Home, and the Heber C. Kimball home (today).

I walked to the HCKH today a distance of  about 3/4 mi. It was a lovely walk in my pioneer dress with my crocheting on my back; not too hot, no wind, and cloudy. The wagon pulled by "Nip and Tuck" passed me on the first round about town. At 3 pm when I was due to walk home it was pouring buckets and guess who had not grabbed her umbrella. Luckily my dear companion was thinking of me. She called saying she had asked Sister Hatch, who was also off shift and headed home, to pick me up.

The great grandson of Heber C. Kimball, Dr.J. Golden Kimball, came to Nauvoo in 1959, wanting to buy his great grandfather's house to restore it and use it as a summer home.  So many people came to the door wanting a tour as they were working on  it that he approached the church with the idea that maybe there was enough interest in the history of the place and what went on here that it would merit a restoration.  The Nauvoo Restoration Inc.was formed and the work began leading to the wonderful interesting and inspiring place it is now.

We feel that the restoration is an answer to Wilford Woodruff's prayer when upon selling his beautiful new brick home for only $675. and joining the exodus west he penned these words: I was in Nauvoo on 26th of May 1846, for the last time, and left the city of the saints feeling that most likely I was taking a final farewell to Nauvoo for this life.  I looked upon the Temple and City as they receded from view and asked the Lord to remember the sacrifices of his Saints."  People are now remembering.

It is Sunday again What a great day it has been!

Our Sacrament meeting begins at 8am. If you are not there by 20 min. to the hour you are in the rec
hall on the hard chairs. As summer goes on we will have more visitors and will be even more crowded. 
Tonight the Young Sister Missionaries put on a "Sociable".  The theme was the atonement. They sang and testified and sang and sang while they played, and danced to a gospel song (ballet), testified. Then they had a violin accompaniment with a vocal solo.  It was all amazing.  The young people here are all so talented.

The Young Performing Missionaries have been here three weeks. They practice from early morning to late in the afternoon, eat and then go perform, "Sunset". There is a brass band and then singers and dancers. Most of the kids could sing or dance or both when they got here. Now they are doing everything.

Saturday was the opening for the shows but not the p YPM's Put on "The Promise", ( a history of life  in Nauvoo, funny and sad), Anna Amanda, (a vignette about a pioneer girl, with puppets too), and then they have a big part in "Sunset" with us senior missionaries. They work very hard.

The band plays in "Sunset", they have their own horse drawn carriage to take them around town playing and they get out and play in Old Nauvoo walking around stopping here and there. It almost gives the place a Disney Land feel.  Of course a lot of what they play is songs like "There is Sunshine in My Soul Today" or  "We Are As the Armies of Helaman" or "Oh How Lovely Was the Morning".

We went down and took some more beautiful pictures by the Sarah Granger Kimball house today. Peonies everywhere. Also took some of the Women's Garden.  I will try to post them in the next day or so.

Goodnight everyone.

And May Goes Flying By

It is hard to believe it is the 22nd of May.  Friday will be five weeks since we came to Nauvoo.

Sunday I sent some of you a picture from the Sarah Granger Kimball home.  Hiram Kimball was a wealthy business man in Nauvoo and was attracted to this beautiful girl Sarah, who had moved to the area with her family from Kirtland when she was 15.
Hiram was 34 and Sarah was 21. They lived in the home Hiram had bought earlier to live in but had now fixed up suitable for his new bride.

Sarah later had hired a seamstress lady, Miss Margaret Cook, to sew for her and they began to consider how they could combine their efforts to perhaps make new shirts for the men working on the temple. Miss Cook said she had the skills but had no means.  Sarah told her she would furnish the material if Miss Cook would sew the shirts.  They felt some of their neighbors might be interested in helping too, combining their means and efforts. The neighboring sisters met in Sarah's parker (March 4, 1842) to organize a Ladies' Society.  After a constitution was written they presented it Joseph Smith who said "Tell the sisters their offering is accepted of the Lord, and He has something better for the than a written constitution." He said, "I will organize the women under the priesthood after the pattern of the priesthood."

He later said, " The church was never perfectly organized until the women were thus organized." Hence began the Relief Society. First organized officially on March 17, 1842, and is now the largest, and longest lived women's in the world.

From small beginnings can come great things.

Sarah's husband was later baptized a member.  Sarah went with the body of the church when they left Nauvoo with her children, some family members, and her mother and without Hiram who was on an extended business trip. He joined her later.

She led a very public life in Utah. She loved politics. She was, in 1882, an active participant in the Utah Constitutional Convention. In 1891 she was a leader in the Utah Woman Suffrage Association. She always "said what she felt forcibly and always with effect." She was almost 80 when she died.

Hiram, at 62, and some others were killed when a boiler blew up aboard a small boat transporting them to a ship which would have taken them to serve a mission in Tahiti.

'Nite for now, Sister Boyle (Mom, Grandma)

Some pics

It has come time,(and past) to write again on this blog. I am sorry for those of you who have come to look and  found the nothingness that was here.  We continue to be busy going to new sites everyday.  They are trying to get us newbees in to all the sites at least once before the rush begins.

The anticipation is thick enough to cut with a knife.  The YPM's (Young Performing Missionaries) have arrived and can be heard about any time of day practicing the music for the performances. The pageants begin July 8th.  There are 2 this year: The "British Pageant" and the Nauvoo Pageant. There will also be about 10 vignettes going on through the week besides Rendezvous and Sunset by the Mississippi. Some of the vignettes are put on by the core cast from the pageants and some by the YPM's.

The brass band has also arrived and is now practicing with us for Sunset.  Except for not being able to hear ourselves think it is quite exciting to have them here.  Their director is a retired college director from BYUI (Ricks).

This week I have been at the

 Lucy Mack House (the prophet's mother) where I learned about her steadfast support for Joseph and her unfailing testimony of the truth of the restoration inspite of losing so many of her sons for the cause.

Cultural Hall which had 16 different uses in the time the Saints were here, including theater, Masonic Hall, school, courtroom, dance pavilion, banquet hall, for funerals, police department, church, and last but not least a place to build wagon boxes for the exodus. After the saints left the hall, in 1851, was sold at sheriff's auction for $4.38  It now, having been restored,  has a quilt display from pioneer times on the second floor, and is where we perform Rendezvous, on the first floor. There are 3 casts which rotate through the days of the week putting on the play every night but Sunday.  If there are enough tickets given out the cast of the evening puts the show on twice. In the summer the YPMs put on a cute show earlier in the day, "Just Plain Anna Amanda".

Today I went to the site called the Pendelton Log School House, where we tell of the importance of education and living healthy.

Tuesday was P-Day.  We went to Keokuk for groceries and "stuff".

I always promise to write sooner than later but someday soon will have to suffice.  Love to all.
Sister Boyle.