Burns in Nauvoo: What a week!

December 5, 2021

Where to even begin? This week flew by, there was so much going on!

Monday after work, E/S Wood and us hopped in the car and headed to Dutchman's. This is a unique old time general store in Cantril, Iowa. I'd heard about it our whole mission but had never been to it until Sister Wood, Virgin and I went there a few months ago. After that visit, I was able to convince Doug that he really wanted to go. We've been a few times since. It's like a mini-Walmart, only better. They have bulk food like bags of 10 pounds of jerky, spices, noodles, flours, nuts, etc. I bought several bulk items in hopes to get us through the winter since, because of mission winter driving restrictions, we won't be able to go to Dutchman's until Spring. They have the best kitchen knives! I bought a couple and then we went back and Doug bought me more for an early Christmas present, although I told him they had to go under the tree until Christmas! It's about an hour drive to get there so having the Woods with us made for a fun trip!

Tuesday Sister Rizley came to Conservation and we sewed some things (it's a secret - shhh!) and had a lot of fun! That evening we had choir rehearsal and our training. Guess what!?!?! We get to have a choir this year for Christmas!!!!! We are so excited to be able to do that after not being able to last year! It's been almost two years since we've been in a choir and we missed it! This Friday is the Nauvoo Christmas Walk (more details next week)

and we'll be singing at that.

Wednesday was Sister Peterson's birthday so we in Conservation celebrated by having pizza. The only place to get pizza in Nauvoo is at Casey's and fortunately, they

have gluten-free so I can join in the fun.

Thursday started off with the announcement in Conservation that Sister Darton will be taking over as the Fe-Mail (her spelling!) person when Sister Porter leaves. In other words, she's the new mailroom sister. It was also announced that Sister Wood will be taking over for Sister Brown as the lead in Conservation. We were both sad about that. We love working together and this means that she will stay in Conservation when I move back to gardens. She will do an amazing job though. They are trying to hire someone full-time for that position but haven't yet. We are praying that that will happen soon. If you know of anyone that loves working with historic artifacts, historic sites, along with cleaning not just the sites but also the mission housing, and would love working with amazing missionaries, let me know. We have a lot of fun there. I didn't know cleaning houses could be so fun.

Thursday evening, the choir and many of the missionaries traveled to Carthage for their Christmas on the Square celebration. The choir caroled for about 30 minutes and it was so fun! The temperature outside was great. After caroling, we watched the tractor light parade. It was about as country as you can get and I loved it. I'm sure my grandkids would have loved it!

Friday we started doing inventory of the artifacts in the historic sites. Sister Peterson and I are assigned to Browning Gun. There are 130+ pages of listed artifacts that we need to locate. I'll admit that I was pretty scared at first at the thought of handling the artifacts. Once we started, I felt peace and am humbled to be able to handle them.

Fun story - Friday night I'm sitting at home watching a movie and my phone explodes with text messages! Like, I had 96 within seconds. They were all texts from my children telling me they loved me. There were meme's, notes, pictures, etc., and it continued for quite awhile! I was laughing and loving it!!! I'm guessing that I received over 300 texts. I had 114 just from Bryson! Yes, I counted them! Haha Come to find out, Doug had texted my kids and asked them to do that. He said, "Let's see if we can get 50 texts sent to your mom''. In my children's fashion, they outdid themselves! I love my kids! They are a bunch of goofy goobers - their words! I'm so thankful for their love and support!

Saturday morning a bunch of us sisters got together and crafted. As usual for me, I didn't get mine finished. I ran out of paint so I'll have to get some to finish it.

From today on, church starts at 8:00. That's going to take a little getting used to. It's still an hour later than work starts but I enjoyed my sleep in time. We also started today having second hour meetings for the first time since I've been here. It's nice getting back to "normal", whatever normal is! Haha

It's interesting in the mission because everything, even cleaning, has a spiritual base to it. It's hard to explain but I love serving here. I love serving my Savior.

I love this time of year! I love Christmas! I invite you this week to take a few minutes and ponder on how you can draw closer to the Savior, especially at this Christmas season.

We love you!