Good afternoon dear family and friends! I hope this finds you well and that you had a great Thanksgiving!
It was definitely different for Elder Burns and me as I'm sure it was different for a lot of you also. It was weird only buying a small turkey and fixing our Thanksgiving feast for two instead of 15 or more. It was a great feast though and I'm thankful for that! Later in the afternoon, many of the Senior Missionaries serving here gathered outside, socially distanced, and shared pie with each other. We had a wonderful time visiting and getting to know each other better.
Thanksgiving evening, we had a "drive-by goodbye" to Elder and Sister Avey. Elder Avey served in the Historic Site Mission Presidency and, as I stated in my last letter, he was recently diagnosed with cancer and had to leave the mission early to return home for treatment. They are an amazing couple and I am a better person for knowing them. Our first Sunday here, when we were still allowed to meet in person for church, Sister Avey visited with me for quite awhile after Sacrament Meeting. She is so sweet and made me feel so welcome. Later, we were able to take part in a tour of the new "Nauvoo Temple City" with them as the guides. It was a very spiritual experience.
These past few weeks, I've had Sister Allen working with me in the mechanic shop. She's made it a lot of fun, we've had some great conversations and I'll be sad to see her leave in two weeks. I'm finding the hard part of a mission is all of the good-byes as the other missionaries leave. With Sister Allen's help, we are accomplishing a lot but still have a way to go before it's organized! I told Kendall (my "boss") that I'm going to come back and haunt him if they don't keep it clean after I leave! 😂
We visited a store in Carthage called "Christmas Store" and I was in heaven! They had over 100 decorated Christmas trees, all themed, and all of the ornaments for sale! Needless to say, I spent more than I should have but the little nutcracker ornaments we bought are so cute! I was hoping they would have a pioneer themed tree but they didn't. We also window shopped some of the stores in Nauvoo. One of the workers was so excited to "have people in the store!" Most of the stores are closed, out-of-business or for sale.
There is so much more to write but I'll end with this. The last few days were hard. I was missing my kids and grandkids - a lot! I wanted to be with them, hug them, hold them and just be there! I was thinking that I'm sacrificing all of that to clean an auto mechanic shop and I wasn't happy. I went to Heavenly Father in prayer and let Him know my feelings. As I was checking my email a few minutes later, I was prompted to open an email that I get weekly but have rarely opened. It was titled "What happens when you're grateful for EVERYTHING". I won't go into the details of the letter but it helped me greatly! I've loved being able to concentrate more on what I'm grateful for this past week with the #givethanks challenge from our Prophet and I truly am grateful for everything - the ups and downs, the highs and lows and even the auto mechanic shop because they all allow me to grow and become who I'm meant to be. I am finding joy in my journey and pray that you are also finding joy in your journey!
Love you!
Sister Burns
P.S. I encourage all of you to go online to nauvoohistoricsites.org/live/ and book a live video tour and "visit" any of the historic sites here in Nauvoo and Carthage. It's a great opportunity to "be in Nauvoo".
P.S.S. Don't forget to #LightTheWorld! For a calendar of activities and other ideas of how you can light the world, visit lighttheworld.org
Our first snowfall - Tuesday, Nov. 24. It melted pretty quickly.
This is the mess that I'm cleaning right now.
Little by little we're making progress!
Our Thanksgiving dinner.
This is by far the smallest table that I've ever had for a
Thanksgiving dinner but we had a
lovely day and were able to talk with almost all of our children.
I'm sure thankful for Marco Polo!
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