It has been a busy week as we've moved from the regular tourist season to the busloads of people for Church History tours. In a couple of weeks we have a group coming from Spain. They are members who have been saving for years to make the trip to visit Church History sites. We also have a group of over 600 single adults coming on the 18th for a "Mega Conference". Then the following week we host a Regional Mission Presidents' Seminar with 17 mission presidents and their wives. Never dull...
We have seven senior couples going home this week. Not only does it hurt our numbers of missionaries, but it also hurts my heart. We have grown close to them as we've served together. On the flip side, we have three couples arriving in the next few days, which will be great. I have helped a bit with creating the missionary work schedule for the week and boy is that a challenge! It takes a couple of days to put everything into the program; specific people working specific assignments, pdays, special requests, Nauvoo on the Road missionaries, training missionaries, sewing room sisters, site coordinators...and the list goes on. Even after building the schedule last week, we had over 184 changes. Much of that comes when we have tour groups come and need certain missionaries to do certain assignments. One thing is constant here, change :0)
Thursday we drove down to a place near Springfield to finish up seeing the Lincoln things we missed on our last trip. We first went to New Salem, Ill., which is a little village where Lincoln lived as a young man. They’ve rebuilt the log cabins and there are a couple of people there in period clothing that tell a bit about the time period. In no way does it compare to Nauvoo, but it does give you a feel for what the little town may have been like. It was good to learn a little more about Lincoln and how he really was self-taught and made his own way in the world. We also went to his tomb in Springfield, which is a massive monument, as well as the State Capitol Building. We always have to do things with historical significance :0)
Conference weekend here brings its own unique challenges. We want to serve the guests that come by providing site tours, but President Lusvardi also knows that the missionaries would like to watch Conference. So we had a few of the main sites open with missionaries and then guests could go to the Visitors' Center to get a missionary to take them around to any of the other sites they wanted to see. In theory it's good so that missionaries can watch Conference, but in practice, not so much. Most of the guests didn't want to go to the Visitors' Center and just did things on their own, which meant they didn't get the full experience. Oh well, live and learn.
Neither of us were able to watch much Conference on Saturday, Scott was at Browning Gun and I was in the office. But on Sunday we served together in Browning Gun and there were people for the first two hours but, during the afternoon session, no one came so we could watch it...until the last ten minutes, when a small family came for a tour.
Ahhhh General Conference. Always what I need to boost my spirits and give me the shot in the arm I need. President Nelson's invitation to participate in a 10 day social media fast, read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year, attend the temple more regularly and participate more fully in Relief Society gave me solid things I could do to improve. Three cheers for a prophet!
A few thoughts from this week:
- Trials help us see the miracle.
- Heavenly Father will give us as much light and revelation as we want and are willing to work for.
- Earth has no sorrows that Heaven can't heal.
And a few pictures as well:
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