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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.