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OK, attempt #2.  Blogspot is not being very helpful today in posting my picts in the order I want and not allowing me to make corrections.  So, I'll try again.  If not, I'll quit and try another day...

After the Christmas/New Years holidays, it's taken me a while to get back into the swing of things.  Not a lot going on anyway and I've been sort of busy.  I had the opportunity to speak in church last week, not my favorite thing to do, so that pretty much occupied all of my spare time last week.  Maybe I can catch things up a bit this week.

Elder Kevin has moved to a new area in the Gurnee 3rd ward (Spanish speaking, of course).  He is still the District Leader.  We are trying to find out when he will be released so we can pick him up and all come home at the same time.  Our end of things is OK with it.  His end is the hang up.  We shall see.

February starts in a week and we are heading towards our final months of our mission.  A few of the winter missionaries will be leaving in March and we are working on getting ready for the influx of the summer missionaries in late April in time for the pageant and all the activities of summer.  This will be our second summer here and it should be hectic but fun.

The Mississippi River is frozen over and not flowing anymore.  That big expanse is normally water.  It's pretty shallow pretty far out there.  The barges won't be travelling up the river until mid-March.

Remember this scene during the summer?

Just doesn't look quite the same, does it?

I was up checking the condition of the gutters on the temple the other day and did this pano from the North West corner, left to right.  We had some snow a couple of days before so it looks kind of nice.  A couple of inches blanketed most of Nauvoo.

I also got this up close and personal pict of the tower with the gorgeous blue sky behind it.  Course, it was in the teens when I took it and I was not wanting to stay up there all that long.  Not everyone can get this close to the tower but being an engineer, I have the keys to the roof.  Cool, huh?

We had a lecture recently by Brother Dunn that displayed a piece of the original temple.  I'm guess ing this was out front on the steps.  When the temple was destroyed, the stones were scattered all over the countryside and used in buildings everywhere so occasionally you will see small fragments of the original building here and there.  This is actually a very good specimen.

Well, I have more but I am out of time.  I need to get to work.  I will try to get back in a couple of days for the next posting.  Spring is right around the corner, or so they say.  The Nauvoo Fudge Factory opens in a week so we are all anxiously awaiting their opening so we can get some of their luscious caramels...