First Day

First Day in Nauvoo

We arrived in Keokuk, Iowa around 4 yesterday. After a fruitless search for a place to eat that wasn't fast food, we decided to just do our Walmart shopping and eat at home.  Fortunately, because we had stopped at the FM office on our way to Utah - three weeks ago - we had a key to our house.  We arrived around 6:30.  While I put the groceries away, Dee unloaded the car.  We are in one place now for 18 months.  No overnight trips anywhere.  No packing and storing.  A simple life. 

 

Last night I went outside to try and get a photo of the beautiful sunset over the river and met our upstairs's neighbor, Elder Barton. Later our district leaders, Elder and Sister Nelson, from Farmington! visited us with a basket of bread from the Family Living Center, and some homemade jam. They invited us to dinner the next day.

Our kitchen after we unpacked. 

This does not do the sunset justice.  It was red all across the horizon.

Soup, bread, and homemade jam welcome gift.  Sister Nelson explained this was a Nauvoo mission tradition.

Today Dee was up early bike riding around town. After breakfast we visited the mission post office, which is not the US post office exactly, but all of our mail was there. Plus a mission DI where people leave things they don't want to take home. 

At 10:00 we met with the mission president and his wife, Elder and Sister Lesvardis, along with our MTC friends who came out with us, the Weldons and the Cornwalls.  Then we went to the FM office and got some of our shirts. We hurried home for a quick lunch and had just enough time to go to the temple before our dinner appointment.  The Nauvoo Temple closes after Saturday until mid-December.  Every where we go the temple closes.  The Nauvoo temple is one of the few temples where we progress through 3 rooms where the walls have beautiful murals.  

The evening started with a nice dinner at the Nelson's, who then took us next door to meet the Zone leader and his wife, the Christensen's from Idaho Falls. Then, because we are in Nauvoo, we went to a lecture by Susan Easton Black Durant and her husband George Durant.  She spoke about Emma Smith.  The Durant's own a house in Nauvoo - and I guess they drop in often between their BYU responsibilities. 

And tomorrow Elder Causey drops in for a few minutes to speak to us.  I don't know what I'll be doing in Nauvoo, but whatever it is, the perks are immense.