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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.

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Pageant is wrapping up this week so we decided we needed to take one more shot at seeing the Nauvoo Pageant since we probably won't ever be back here again.  It was a good choice as the night's weather was spectacular as well as the performances.  After the pageant we got to meet with some of the cast that Arlene wanted to meet.  We also sat next to our favorite site missionary sisters once again.

The opening was attended with flags, bagpipes, singing the National Anthem, and prayer.

Lots of pageant show going on throughout the evening.

One of the highlights of the pageant is erecting the temple in pieces.  It's large and goes up  bit by bit, a little at a time.  Of course, it goes up as the story unfolds.

Then they begin to put up the temple walls...

Almost there...

...and done!  Pretty phenomenal temple, huh?   

At the end, they light up the real temple in the background as they sing the closing songs.  It's pretty impressive.  Unfortunately, I was sitting a little too far to the left to get the whole temple in the final picture.    

Arlene got a chance to talk to one of her favorite singers, Dallyn Bayles.  He sang at one of the other presentations and he has a phenomenal tenor voice.

Arlene also got to talk to Aurora and Scott who play the Lairds in the pageant.  They are wonderful actors and they also play in one of the temple videos, just in case you might recognize them. 

Just a really nice evening for us.  In a few days, the pageant ends and all of this goes away for the year.  The stage will be empty and Nauvoo begins to empty out as the end of summer slowly comes around.  School will start in a few weeks and the kids will no longer be here but the retired folks will start coming for the late summer rush but that is never as much as the summer rush.  As things wind down, we are getting ready to head on home, making plans for a couple of temple visits back here and that final drive across the mid-west to home and the end of our mission.  We've been here almost 18 months now, but it seems like forever...some days.