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Tonight was the annual Temple Ordinance Worker Devotional.  We were able to meet in the Assembly Room of the temple, and it was packed, and hear from the temple presidency, the temple matron and the president.  We also were able to hear Brother Marshal sing one of his famous songs that is just spectacular and we also got to hear a medley of songs played on the grand piano in the Assembly Room.  A very nice afternoon.  Most of the comments were thanking us for our work as workers in the temple and their testimonies of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  Then we were able to meet over at the Arrival Center and eat cookies.  Good way to top the evening.

Last night was the Annual Pumpkin Walk in Nauvoo.  This has grown from the Nelson Family Halloween to a town gathering of revelers that look at carved pumpkins.  Literally hundreds of pumpkins that are on display on the sidewalks of the street for a few blocks (no, I could never get a clear shot of the pumpkins, sorry), right next to each other.  There are lots of things to see, a flash mob (group, wasn't too big this year, I'm told), food to buy and consume, and costumes everywhere.  But I was focused on the pumpkins.

With as many people as there were in town, the local police kept the streets open to car traffic.  That seemed to be a dumb move.  There are side streets that cars could have driven around the festivities.  The sidewalks are really crowded and the thing only last 3 hours from 6 to 9 PM.

I'll only show a few of my favorites.  Some of them are truly spectacular!

Well, there had to be a Bart Simpson there somewhere, didn't there?

Odie?

The flash "mob" and that's one of our laundry "Queens" hamming it up.  We had one of our janitors in there also.

"Rocky Road, heh, heh!"

A wookie for good measure...

Of course, there had to be one of these in there somewhere!

Nice details!

"I am groot!"

Look at the detail on this one!

Wouldn't be Halloween without one of these, now would it?

All in fun.  Nothing like the smell of burnt pumpkin in the evening (blech!).  But, it was nice if you're a pumpkinophile.  Personally, I think I've reached my limit for the next 40 years.  That was way more than enough for me.

Oh, yeah, they don't do Halloween in Nauvoo.  I guess you go to another town for that.  This is what they do here.

And just so you'll be thinking about it, Elder Kevin will be hitting his big one year half-way mark in the mission field in about two weeks.  Now that is hard to believe isn't it?