DAILY GROWTH

Weather, weather, weather, but I will save the weather story for later!!!

This week has been full of dress rehearsals and pageants which means late nights at the pageant stage and a few early mornings at the Temple.  All the locals kept telling us that in July the attendance would double and triple and it has.  It makes for busy days with the time flying by but also makes for tired legs and feet.  But, we are enjoying every minute of it!  More and more every week, I come to love and appreciate all the District Ordinance Workers who travel a lot of miles to serve to serve with the Temple Missionaries.

Both the British Pageant and the Nauvoo Pageant are awesome.  The core cast and families do an excellent job and the storyline is very touching.  Elder Talbot is fascinated with the mechanics of the props and movement of the stage floors.  If given the chance, we would recommend that one see the British Pageant before the Nauvoo Pageant.

It was clever watching the ship being erected during the Pageant.  When the wind was blowing it really pushed the sails out and looked like a real ship.

Again, it is a small world.  When I was getting my hair done on Wednesday morning, a lady came into the shop and asked, “Who is from Nevada?”  It was Jill and Del Purcel from Fallon, Nevada.  Del was in the Fallon South Stake Presidency and I often exchanged communication with him in scheduling the ward youth baptisms for his stake.  They now live in Utah.  Again, it was fun visiting with someone from Nevada.

Friday night before the British Pageant, we went to the Log Cabins where Jim and Sandy Talbot (Neil’s older brother) and family were having a family reunion to celebrate Jim’s 80 birthday.  They had scheduled this reunion long before we received our call to serve.  It was so good to see and visit with them.  They had 29 of their family in Nauvoo.  They now have 17 grandchildren with 1 great granddaughter (Gwen) born just a few weeks after our great granddaughter, Maylee.  In fact, she looks quite a bit like Maylee and was just as small when she was born.  We also saw them at the British Pageant, the Temple, and just as they were leaving Nauvoo this morning.  It is always good to see family.

Jim and Sandy Talbot and family at the British Pageant

Gwen Kenney - Jim and Sandy's great great granddaughter.

The Talbot brothers

Now for the weather story.  Friday after our temple shift, we went with our friends, the Ashcrafts, to eat lunch in Lomax, IL.  On our way home, the clouds came and it starting raining but didn’t last too long.  So, when we went to perform in the British Pageant that night, we did take our umbrellas.  We parked in the Ashcraft’s driveway and walked the last few blocks to the Pageant.  It had been raining just a little off and on but quit when the show began.  It was almost to the finale where we would sing with the cast the last song,  when thunder and lightning began.  The thunder was very loud and startling.  Then when the lightning shows started in the sky, they stopped the pageant and told everyone to take cover.  We both had our umbrellas but they didn’t keep us dry. The sky just dumped a huge amount of water all at once.  By the time we walked back to our car, we were drenched from the waist down.  We were dripping water all over and were wet clear through.  One of the temple missionary sisters’ skirt was so wet that it fell off and she didn’t even know it.  Her husband saw it and retrieved it.  It was a good thing she had a black slip on.  Our only regret is that we didn’t take pictures of our dripping shoes and clothes.  However, I was able to save my hairdo and Elder Talbot saved his hearing aids.  We just laughed and said, “Another Nauvoo experience to remember.”  My shoes were still soaked in the morning.  Again, several trees in the flats were down the next morning.

On Saturday morning we visited two more historical sites.  As we entered the Riser Boot shop, Chad Talbot and his daughter, Holly were also there for the tour.  It was fun going on the tour with them.  The young site missionaries demonstrated how they made shoes.  Elder Talbot was fascinated with the small wooden pegs that were used to keep the soles on the shoes.  The Riser story is another example of the faith our ancestors had during this Nauvoo Era.  George Riser was born in Germany but he and his family migrated to America and settled in a German speaking community in Ohio when he was young.  He apprenticed as a shoemaker for three years and then worked as a journeyman shoemaker for another year.  By the time he was 22 he owned his own shop.

He learned about the "Mormons" from an employee and was so curious, he packed up his wife and baby son and traveled to Nauvoo.  After they arrived, the baby became very sick and Joseph Smith and Orson Hyde gave the baby a priesthood blessing and he was healed.  This led George and Christiana to be baptized.  George then sold his wagon and team of horses to purchase land & build a home and shop.  He was known for making good quality shoes at inexpensive prices. Later, the baby died but instead of blaming God, the Risers considered him to be the blessing that brought them into the church and their faith remained strong.

String keeps the leather attached to the sole of the shoe.

A pair of shoes at Riser Boot Shop cost $1.75.  Boots cost $5.50.  The average worker in Nauvoo earned about $1.00 per day. 

We also visited the Lyon Drug and Variety Store owned by Windsor and Sylvia Lyon.  The store’s shelves were filled with medicines, textiles, hardware, household items, spices, (and even a turkey) that would have been in the store during the 1840s.  The store is surrounded by a herbal and botanical garden showing what plants and herbs would have been in Lyon’s inventory.   The most interesting to us was the “bee box”.  Bees were hard to find so a bee box was made about 4” x 8” with two drawers.  Flour was put in the bottom drawer which was covered with a pull-out shelf.  The top of the box had a window in the center and was hinged.  Sweet bait laid on the closed shelf which attracted the bee.  When the bees took the bait, the top shelf was closed.  Then the shelf was pulled out to drop the bees in the flour.  The coated bees were now white and sluggish, so they were easy to follow back to their hives.  It would have been interesting to see those white bees.

Some of the items that could have been purchased in the drug store.

Where is the turkey?

Outside herbal and botanical garden.

The famous "bee box" sitting on top of the barrel!

Today (Monday) was our p-day and we decided to visit a few historic towns near Nauvoo before going grocery shopping.  Our first stop was Warsaw, IL.  It is located at foot of the Des Moines rapids of the Mississippi River and was the site of three military forts: Fort Johnson (1814), Cantonment Davis (1815–1818), and Fort Edwards (1816–1824).  The first settlers participated in fur trade and was an important trade and shipping center.  Thomas Sharp, editor of local newspaper Warsaw Signal,  helped found the anti-Mormon political party.  Because of anti-Mormon opposition, LDS church leaders directs the Saints in town to move to Nauvoo in December 1841.  Five of the nine men indicted for killing Joseph and Hyrum Smith lived in Warsaw.

The original Warsaw House, also known as the Fleming Tavern, was where the mob met after they killed Joseph and Hyrum at the Carthage Jail. Upon their return, some of the mob boasted they had “killed ol’ Joe.” Eliza Graham, who worked and lived there, served the mob that night. Being a Mormon, Eliza was the star witness for the prosecution at the trial. Her aunt who was not a Mormon, Ann Fleming, was the hotel owner and a witness for the defense. Ann contradicted Eliza’s testimony. All five of the accused were acquitted. Eliza moved to Nauvoo, married John Pack, and then moved to Utah. John Pack became a founder of the University of Utah. 

We were able to drive right down to the dock where a barge was being loaded.  (Barges still intrigue us).  We also found a Statue of Liberty that was funded by the Boy Scouts in memory of our freedom.

Close up view of the barge being filled.  This barge will travel all the way to New Orleans

Monument dedicated to the Fort Edward which was a military fortress in the early 1800s.

Statue of Liberty in Illinois?

We then drove on to Quincy and walked the area which is now a park where the saints first crossed the Mississippi river when they were driven from Missouri.  The Historical Museum is closed on Monday.  (It seems a lot of places are closed in Illinois on Monday).  Here the saints were welcomed, given food and shelter until they could recover and move on to Nauvoo.  Unlike Warsaw, Quincy is now a thriving city.  I just had to cross the bridge so I could say that I had been in three different states today.

Bridge to Missouri over the Mississippi River.  This is the place where the Saints crossed into Quincy.

These pictures of Elder Talbot by the corn field taken June 17^th then again on July  11^th shows how  much it has grown in less than a month.  We wished we had taken pictures of the progress of the corn fields every week as we traveled to Canton.  Each week the corn fields were growing taller and taller.  Elder Talbot and I have had quite a few discussions about how these cornfields are like our testimonies of the gospel.  We both had strong testimonies before coming on our mission but they have continued to grow every day and are much stronger than they were in April.  If the farmers do not continue to fertilize and if it does not rain, the corn would not grow to its potential.  It is the same way with our faith and testimonies.  Everyday we need do a little something to increase our testimonies of the gospel.  In Job 19:25 it states:  “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”  We both testify to the truthfulness of this statement. 

Growth of the corn from June 17th to July 11th (yellow is reflection from the sun).

Another beautiful cloud formation and sunset as we left the Temple Saturday night.