Tourist Season in Nauvoo

The reason we are serving a mission at the Nauvoo Temple, the tourist season, has hit, big time. The first month was rather slow as we trained and geared up. Now they've added sessions in all areas of the Temple. For the most part, our hours aren't any longer, but we work at an increased pace with more people attending.

We're assigned to the Baptistry on Tuesday afternoons. The rest of the temple is closed, but we make up for it with the Youth coming in droves. This shift is the one that's a little longer--we worked well over six hours instead of our usual 5ish. We ran out of some sizes of baptismal clothes this week. And the busyness we faced was only matched by the weather with heavy rains and winds off and on throughout the day. At one point I heard a mother's phone going off on an Amber Alert. When we got out of the temple and looked at our phones, we found it wasn't an Amber Alert but a full-blown tornado warning (no pun intended), telling us to go to a safe place in a basement or shelter, which is exactly where we'd been. We didn't hear or feel any of it. Fortunately, the tornado didn't touch down in Nauvoo, but nearby towns had a lot of damage, including Fort Madison (we attend church there) where they lost power and even had the doors blown off the Dollar General store.  

And to kick off the summer tourist season, Jeff and family came to town. We had a lot of fun visiting places areound Nauvoo and to Carthage with them. They came on Eliza's birthday and stayed until Jeff's. Three full days and two half days for travel, but except for our Saturday morning shift at the Baptistry, we had free time to spend with them.

In addition to houses like the bootmaker, various pioneer homes, and gunmaker John Browning's home, we enjoyed activities. Most of the pictures we took were at the Pioneer Pastimes and the Family Living Center. It was fun to learn about the ways the pioneers lived, worked, and played in Nauvoo. 

Table Tenpins

Flipping

All the way up!

Emily was especially talented at ring toss

As if Jacob needs help in being taller

Attempting to lasso a sheep

The kids loved this game. Everyone tries to knock the weighted green ball off the block by throwing balls at it, which is harder than it looks. When the ball falls, the person who stands behind the block and is It (in this case the kid in the black shirt), tries to tag someone running to pick up their ball. Simple game, lots of fun, over and over.

Two wagon rides and an ox-cart ride are available around town--fun and relaxing

(Cousin) Elder Wallentine in the blacksmith shop

Skills learned in the Family Living Center

Carding wool

Weaving a rug

Weaving a bigger rug

And a different kind of loom

Brickmaking:

                                             Eliza's brick

There's a Hole in my Bucket

Lots of twisting goes into making a rope--LOTS of twisting

  Candle Making (the kids said it was fun, but they might not say that if, instead of being in an air conditioned, building, they were standing next to a pot over a fire)

Door at Carthage

Maybe we did a little too much

After "Sunset on the Mississippi" show

The real sunset on the Mississippi

Fun times!

Morning farewell before they head out