Crump Crew in Nauvoo: Wait for it...wait for it...

It's arrived! The tourist season is upon us!

Memorial Day is tomorrow and the seasonal tourists are beginning to arrive. In anticipation of the crowds, we bake 50,000 little molasses cookies to give to guests at the Scovil Bakery! Today we served in the Visitor Center and we had a Youth Conference group of 194 from Memphis, Tennessee. Things are getting busy!

We began our first of many performances of “Sunset by the Mississippi”. It’s not as scary as I had anticipated. I just try not to think about all of the people watching us and how I mess up on just about every dance we do! Thankfully the Young Performing Missionaries do most of the show and the senior missionaries are a sidelight, or you could call us the comic relief! There are three casts and we are in the blue cast that will perform Wednesday and Saturday nights in June. Each month we rotate which days we perform. With the heat, humidity and pioneer clothing things get pretty sweaty backstage :0)

This week we had our first Nauvoo visitors! Randy and Charlotte Meldrum came with Charlotte’s father, brother and sister-in-law. It was absolutely the best to have them here and share Nauvoo with them! We had the chance to go to Carthage as well and enjoy the spirit there.

Scott was able to serve in the Brickyard a few times this week and learned all about how the pioneers made bricks. It’s a hard, sweaty job but he has enjoyed it. He had a visitor come by this week that he went to high school with, Larry Fullmer. So it was fun for him to tell Larry and his wife all about the brickyard.

One day this week I was at the Land and Record office which is where visitors can find information about their ancestors that were here in Nauvoo. I helped one lady gather over 43 records about her ancestors that were here! We have information that can only be found here, like if someone owned land, contributed in any way to the building of the Nauvoo Temple, owned a business or died and were buried in the pioneer cemetery, among other things. It’s a happy moment when we can connect the visitors to their pioneer ancestors.

We served twice at Pioneer Pastimes, which we have done a few times already. This week though the Nauvoo Brass Band come by and had the kids participate in a little parade. The kids had so much fun and the band members were great with them, letting them beat on their drums, blow on their trumpets and try to get some kind of sound out of the tuba.

I had the chance to give a tour at the Pendleton Log School in Spanish! A family from Guatemala came in and the grandparents spoke very little English. I did the best I could and quickly realized that I need to increase my Nauvoo vocabulary! But in the end, I was able to share my testimony. Thankfully I can do that in Spanish and the spirit speaks all languages.

Just to get an idea of our daily schedules: we have and A, B & C schedule. A goes from 8:45-3:00, B is 11:45-5:30 and C has a split schedule, 3 ½ hours in the morning and then another 3 hours in the afternoon. Then two nights a week we perform in “Sunset”. The historic sites are open every day of the week, as well as holidays, like Memorial Day tomorrow.

Last week I mentioned the fact that we received the dreaded “Golden Ticket” to teach Sunday School. The topic was the Reign of the Judges, which is hard enough, but the fact that we taught to 200+ people made it a bit more difficult. Because the crowd is so large we use a PowerPoint to project the scriptures, pictures and videos up on the theater screen (we have Sunday School & Priesthood/RS in the theaters in the Visitor Center). It’s certainly a different ballgame than teaching a lesson in a home ward. But we’re done with that, so now we just have to anticipate a Golden Ticket to speak in church and teach Priesthood/RS.

That about sums up our week. Each day gets busier and busier as the visitors arrive. We love it though. There’s nothing like sharing Nauvoo with the people who come. There are some visitors who come here because it’s their destination spot, they’re visiting church history sites. But there are also people who come that have no idea why they are here. They just "felt" like they should stop by or remember coming here as a child on a school field trip and wanted to see it again because of the way they felt when they were here long ago. Hmmm. “…the Holy Ghost…shall bring all things to your remembrance…”