Summer is fading fast...

What’s happening to the time?!  It’s Labor Day already! That means summer is drawing to a close.  Nauvoo just celebrated their Grape Festival with the usual town days type activities; a parade, car show, 5k run, carnival rides and pancake breakfast.  People came from all over Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and even Ohio.  That brought more inquisitive guests to check out the historic sites, which was great!

We love having visitors from home and this past week was awesome!  See the pictures below to find out who came by :0)

There are times when guests come to Nauvoo and we get some feedback on what they thought of their visit.  This Sunday, during the Grape Festival, we had a group come to the brickyard where Scott and I were serving with Elder and Sister Barton.  The visitors had ridden their Harley’s from somewhere in Illinois and the older couple was excited to show the other couple around Nauvoo.  They had been here a few years ago and the one lady said, “Ya’ll are just so nice here we wanted to come back and bring our friends!”  They felt something when they were here before and wanted to share it.  That’s what it’s all about, helping people feel the spirit, even though they may not realize, at the time, what it is. 

I want to be able to remember these lessons from this past week:

·      Focus on focusing.  Concentrate on the Savior more each day; what He said, what He did and especially how He treated people.

·      Deep spiritual truths don’t come to us without replacing the world with the spiritual. What needs replacing in my life?

·      When it comes to comparing ourselves with others…comparison is the thief of joy.

·      There’s always more to the story and when we only understand others from our perspective and not their own, then we run the risk of not being able to really love them.  Hence the Marjorie Pay Hinckley quote at the beginning of this post.

We love visitors!!
With Alan and Colleen Schmidt and Trell Thorup,
all friends from high school.

A visit from the Seegmillers...
Marci, Chris, Parker and Mia.

And a Saturday night surprise from
Ryan and Tina Davis!

I served in the Post Office with these two awesome women...
Sister Slater and Sister Cook.  A bittersweet time since they both
finished their missions with their husbands and have headed home.

The Scovil Bakery in the early morning hours.

A couple of months ago I posted a picture of the newborn
calves we had here.  Now they're old enough to be trained
as future oxen that will pull the wagons.

A pday trip to Carthage to see the Hancock County Courthouse.
It's a beautiful building that was constructed in 1888.

Some of the amazing stained glass windows that are in the courthouse.

As the marker says,
Abraham Lincoln spoke here in October 1858,
two and a half years before becoming our 16th President.