Burns in Nauvoo: Happiest of Mother's Day

May 10, 2021

Today's Mother's Day was the absolute best! As we arrived at Sacrament Meeting, the YSMs were lined up on both sides of the hall singing "Love at Home" and handed each Senior Sister a white carnation. Their voices were so beautiful and the spirit was so strong. It brought tears to my eyes and I loved it! What a sweet way to start the day! I love being here in Nauvoo with these sweet YSMs. They make my day each time I see them! I'll be so glad when we can start intermingling with them. Later today, we had a Google Meet with all of my children and most of my grandkids. I always love these calls when we all catch up on each other's lives. We are all so busy and I love that they take time for these calls. I love my family and I'm Mom to the most amazing, loving children. I am truly blessed that they are mine! They are the best gifts that I have ever been blessed with! I thank Heavenly Father every day for them! To top it off, Doug bought me flowers and made me a yummy dinner today. Also, we were allowed to sing the Sacrament Hymn today - with masks on, of course! We haven't been able to do that since we arrived here! What a joy that was!

Only a few of the 62 YSMs that were singing to us!

We planted and mulched Lyon Drug! We planted hundreds of plants and added bucket loads of mulch to the gardens and it is beautiful! We had two days of "all hands on deck" working in the Lyon Drug gardens. We weeded, planted and mulched and it was so fun having all the help - the garden missionaries, the 4 interns, Lily and Richard. Many hands definitely made the work go much faster! A funny thing happened with autocorrect as I was texting with Sister Koop about who was coming to help with the mulching. I sent a text that was supposed to say, "I hope it's all hands on deck for mulching tomorrow", instead autocorrect changed it to, "I hope it's all hands on deck for mulching torture." Haha! You might have to spend days and days hauling, dumping and spreading mulch to appreciate the autocorrect version!

This week we also spent a day mulching beds at the Visitors Center, removed daffodil bulbs from the Smith Family Cemetery and kept busy all week! I've never been more exhausted but also so happy! Friday I came home, sat on the couch to remove my shoes and the next thing I knew, it was two hours later and I was waking up from an unplanned nap.

We received some great news this week - the Teamsters get to start wagon and carriage rides Monday! We are all so excited for them! They have faithfully taken the horses and wagons out each day for over 14 months with no passengers and now they get to take visitors and we couldn't be happier for them! We decided to take Cinnamon Rolls to them like we did for the Site Missionaries so we asked Sister Law, a Senior Missionary, if she'd make the rolls for us and she was very kind and did that. I haven't been able to eat any of her rolls, but they look amazing and everyone raves about them. So, she made the rolls and Sister Koop, Sister Law and I delivered them Saturday morning.

Elder Burns has been busy finishing the boxes that he's been making for the trailers. I had him busy loading mulch and fixing the trailer when it wouldn't come down after we dumped some things from it. He also smoothed the ground in front of Lyon Drug and brought gravel and spread on the road there. It looks so much better!

So, this week I did a big oops! We were at Lyon Drug and I needed to move the van and trailer but Richard's truck was in the way. One of the missionaries told me that he would move the truck out of the way for me, he got in the driver's seat as I was closing the doors on the trailer and van. He told me to pull straight ahead as far as I could before I had to turn to avoid hitting the tree ahead of me. I did that, looked to my left, then to my right and realized that he hadn't moved the truck and that the trailer had hit the truck. The trailer hit right in front of the Elder and he didn't honk or anything. Regardless, I was driving the van and now I get to fill out the accident report. I'm always so careful but it only took once. Richard was very patient. I love working with him.

I love serving my mission! I love serving my Savior! I love my family and love the knowledge that I have that we can be a family forever! I am thankful for parents who raised me to love my Savior and to love His church and who set a wonderful example for me to follow.