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Busy, busy, busy...these last couple of weeks have been filled with stuff to do to get ready to leave.  So much to do before we depart and the fact that I'm getting "trunkier" every day isn't helping.  But, I will try to catch things up a bit.

Last Sunday we were invited over to President and Sister McArthur's house for a sort of "last dinner" before we go.  It was a very nice dinner something like a Thanksgiving dinner or, I guess, a pre-Thanksgiving dinner.  Very nice dinner.  

President and Sister McArthur

Later on President and Sister Hansen, the 2nd Counselor, showed up and we had a fun conversation for a little while.

President/Sister McArthur and us together.

On Tuesday we had the opportunity to go on a site tour with Cal Christensen to the "Mounds" in the area.  The mounds are burial sites for indigenous tribes members in the area.  It's where they buried their dead and performed ceremonies of various types.  There are mounds all over the place in this area.  Literally, thousands of mounds.  We visited a few of them.

Brother Christensen starts discussing the mounds and what they mean to us as members of the church.  He handed us a pamphlet that describes the whole area around Nauvoo and the role the Book of Mormon played in this area.  

Not too far from Bro Christensen's house is the Curlee's property.  They have 20 acres that they have preserved due to the nature of what resides on the property.  The upper end of the property has the remnants of a Nephi defensive fort on it.  He explained the way the fort was laid out and arranged.  

This is a picture posted on the site that approximates what the fort would have looked like when it was originally erected in the area.

A replica of a hut on the top of the fort.

A little farther up the road there are several mounds with an explanation.   

Best shot I could get.

Driving around, listening to Bro Christensen is a real treat.

Over on the Ft Madison side of the Mississippi we visited the Little Mound Cemetery.  This is an interesting site.  You hafta realize that this place is absolutely flat and this mound is, well, huge!

You can see how high the mound is.

Other side.

This is taken from the very top of the mound so you can see how flat the surround area is and how high this particular mound is.  Bro Christensen said that this mound dates back to around 400-0 BC or thereabouts.  

We then moved over to the site of Zarahemla and the temple site there.  The wooden post are the approximate cornerstones of the temple location. 

The other direction of the temple site site.  The temple is large.  You can see more post in this field.  

Standing next to the wooden posts in the field and turning due East, looking across the Mississippi, what do you see through the weeds but, you guessed it, the Nauvoo temple!  According to scriptures, there were two temples in Zarahemla, directly across from each other, one on each side of the River Sidon.  One on the West side and one on the East side.  The East one has been rebuilt.  The West one needs to be rebuilt and is yet to be.  Bro Christensen pointed out that the current Nauvoo temple is the third time that temple has been built on the site.  The property is owned by an organization that will eventually do extensive archeological research in the area.  It's not really open for access but Bro Christensen has permission to take tours through the area.  But, think about it, walking in the area that many of the prophets once walked, as well as the prophet Joseph Smith.  What an experience!

Back in Nauvoo, there is a cobbler's house that once belonged to Daniel Butler.  Wonder if this is any relation to Bro Butler in the Pleasant Valley Ward?

Well, we are getting very close to the end.  We only have a few work days left then we are taking off to visit a few temples before we start the trip home.  Our countdown calendar is almost out of days...our last day is Saturday and we should get our release paper that day or before.  'Course, we're running out of time, aren't we?  But, something will need to be done here pretty soon, won't it?

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Last night was the Seaman Family Home Evening for the temple missionaries at the Nauvoo stake center.  We were treated to the family putting on a family show of their many musical talents for us by all 9 of their children as they performed various singing or instrumentals for a crowd of missionaries.  It was quite a treat to see them.

First off was their oldest daughters playing a sing-a-long with the missionaries on ukuleles.  I caught this just for you, Rocky!

A dance number with the parents singing and older siblings dancing ballroom style that they had learned in a summer clinic recently.

The youngest ones singing their hearts out for us in a style only they could possibly do.

The older ones performed a stringed quartet with several numbers that sounded familiar.  Yes, that's a bass guitar...

During the quartet performance, I couldn't help but notice the young ones as they watched the older ones and their dad as they played but they changed their positions so fast, I couldn't get a real good picture of them as they acted like normal boys.  You know, beating on each other, kicking, rolling around on each other, very similar to a few boys I know and love... 

The family all got together while dad played the piano and sang one last song for us.  It was a fun night and we then had great refreshments for everyone and got to mingle for awhile.

Time is growing short here but we are looking forward to heading home.  Won't be long now!

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Another week has gone by and we're one week closer to that inevitable going home day.  Arlene managed to see our final paperwork and our official release date is September 3rd.  No turning back now.  As weary as I am, that is sounding very good to me about now.  The full time, paid, Assistant Engineer that I work with at nights keeps thinking he is going to get a great burst of energy and a sudden massive desire to finish up any outstanding projects I've been involved in.  Funny, I've already done that weeks ago.  Well, maybe not the burst of energy thing...  I'm just trying to keep my head down and do what I need to so I can exit gracefully without causing much of a ripple on the surface.  Sort of a different approach to the end of my mission.  Any guesses on who's going to win?

Tonight we had the old Sacramento Temple 1st Counselor (well, at least when we were working there) and his lovely wife, over for dinner (world famous "Uncle Jim's Industrial Lasagna").  We also had our favorite site missionaries over for one last dinner party, of sorts, before we head out of here.

Sister's Joines/Webb, Arlene, Bro/Sister Baggs.  We had eaten the lasagna and were scarfing ice cream provided by the Baggs.  Bro Baggs gave Kevin his discussion when he went through the temple for the first time and is one of my all time favorite member of any temple presidency.  They are just the nicest people and it's been really special to have them here serving with us.  They are on a 6 month mission in the temple with us.  We found out today that they knew Arlene's Aunt, Mary Chipman, in Sacramento, very well, and we shared some stories.  

Our favorite site missionary sisters all squished on the couch in our apartment.  Sister Joines and Sister Webb.  We all leave on almost the same day in early September.  We're going to try to see them sometime later this year.  As you can see, I am dressed in my best Sunday missionary attire.  Hope the president doesn't see this!

Next, we hustled off to the Young Performing Missionaries (YPM) last sociable for the year as they performed one last time for the site and temple missionaries.  We got to see them first at 5:30 PM then the site missionaries got to see them at 7 PM.  The Visitor's Center has a small auditorium that holds about 200 people but it won't hold all of us so the YPMs hafta perform twice to get to all of us. 

This was the beginning of "Amazing Grace" and I thought this instrument was interesting as, if I remember correctly, this is a practice bagpipe.  'Course, only Bishop Mark Johnson would be able to identify this for me so I am just guessing here.  It's not quite as loud as traditional bagpipes but this is a really small auditorium so it's a good thing.

The singing part of the YPM's.

Another part of the performance. They were so good!

Just outside the Visitor's Center in a flower box there was a couple of interesting flowers.  Thought I would throw this in as a closing thought.  Some things are just too pretty to ignore... 

Getting closer...or 18 days and a wake up...

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Last night we got to attend the VocalPoint acapella presentation.  They were really great and wonderful to watch.

VocalPoint

Just a great group of guys to watch.

They are quite a lively group and are all over the stage.  They sing, dance, and talk quite a bit.  Their numbers are uplifting and spiritual in nature.  They sang a hymn from our hymnal and it was very well received.  It is quite a treat to listen to them.  We enjoyed the show.

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Catching up on a few things...   This time of year the lily pads are in full bloom and all their glory out on the Mississippi.

This field of lilies stretches out quite a ways into the Mississippi near Nauvoo or just South of the town, along the River Road.   

A little closer view of the lilies in their field.   

Note in the middle of the picture on the log is a turtle.  It's about 6" long so you can compare the size of the pads and if you look behind the turtle, you can see a flower and can compare the size of these flowers.  They are truly huge.  

After Sunday night's sociable with VocalPoint at the stake center as we went home, we were treated to a spectacular sunset up in front of the temple.  I took this looking West near the Joseph and Hyrum Smith statue across the street from the temple.

Here's a similar shot with a little filtering as the sun dipped a little lower.  That is President McArthur to the right talking to a couple of his temple missionaries. 

Well, we are getting closer:



Starting to pack a little here and there and we have our hotel arrangements made for our trip to Kirtland, Palmyra and back.  Now I gotta be thinking about heading home...

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Tonight we decided to attend "Sunset on the Mississippi", the presentation that is done on the outdoor stage and has the Young Performing Missionaries (YPM) and the site missionaries (the old Elders and Sisters that run all of the sites here in Nauvoo).  It runs through the next couple of weeks, I think.  But, it was pretty good nonetheless.

It all starts with the whole cast singing the opening song.  There are a lot of people on stage and everyone is doing their best to make everyone have a good time.

The Elders do this singing part with just them and they were really good tonight.  That bald headed guy in the middle is the mission physician.  He's quite a guy and a lot of fun when he acts in the performances.

To the left, center is our favorite site missionaries, Sisters Webb and Joines.

Dancing the Polka...

Some of the fans of the performance

The end of the performance wraps up with the YPMs running out and singing to everyone and saying goodbye.  

The photographer set up a photo of the cast with the site missionaries and the YPMs as well as the Nauvoo Brass Band.  There are three casts and this is just this particular nights cast so there will be others that will have final pictures also.  So, only 4 more Monday nights and our mission is at an end.  We work every other night.

Well, we were at Toyota in Quincy today to get the trailer hitch finished up, hopefully.  They installed the hitch last week but didn't have all of the electrical ready so we had to come back today and have them finish it up.  Another couple of hours to do that.  

Well, the trailer hitch is finally installed and finished so that is checked off of our going home list.  Now for the next thing to pick up as we get ready to head West.

Our schedule changes this week.  We start at 3 PM most days, Tuesday through Friday then at 2 PM on Saturday.  We work till 10 PM on Fridays due to the last session being at 7:30 PM.  The nights are a bit longer than this last pageant month but it's our last month of our mission so we can handle it.  But, it will be a long month and very busy month for us.

We are planning to take a few days to go to Kirtland, OH and Palmyra, NY to visit the sites and the temples there and the other sites offered in the area.  We're looking forward to the break from the routine here and can't wait to be on our way.  But, we need to get through this next month first.  More to come...

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Pageant is now officially over as it ended on the 30th.  The lights are all off the tower and the chairs are gone.  They are rapidly turning the whole place into a park-like area similar to what it was before the pageant started up over a month ago.  I'll get some pictures here pretty soon when it's all finished.  The schedule for the daily activities at the temple is down to 3 pages instead of 10.  We're all looking to breathe just a bit easier and less frantic for the month of August, hopefully.  But this month will be a bit different as we will be saying goodbye to several missionary couples from last winter and by October, all of the engineer missionaries that have served for the last 18 months, including yours truly, will be gone.  An event that I am eagerly anticipating!

So, here are a few catch up pictures I've been hiding on my iPhone.

Just in case you've ever wondered, here is what the front of the temple looks like when we have a multi-hour power outage and all the lights shutdown on the exterior of the temple but a few lights remain on inside.  Not long after this, the lights inside also went off so it was pretty dark but the head engineer sent me home as there was nothing more we could do without any power.  The emergency generator doesn't support a whole lot in the temple, including the chillers. 

Sunset on the MIssissippi, up in front of the temple.  View to the West.  This is actually taken across the President's lawn.

When the Saints first moved to Nauvoo, they started looking for wood to build homes with.  However, the land is wet and produces trees that have an odd characteristic of being hollow and pretty useless for lumber.  Almost all of the trees I have seen come down here look like this old tree that fell down during the last wind storm.  That little spec of light in the far end shows it's hollow all the way through.  The Saints went up stream hundreds of miles to the Wisconsin "Pineries" to cut lumber and float it down the river to Nauvoo to build the temple and the homes here.  This would be an obvious reason why they had to do that.

....and one last thing today....

Not that I am counting or anything...this is the last day at the temple then we take off for our trip to Palmyra and Kirtland, then back to Nauvoo for final packing and heading home.  Should be back about September 23 or 24th, best guess at this point.