Saying "goodbye"

Fall is here and many of the missionaries will be finishing up and heading home. There are over 60 missionaries leaving the Nauvoo Sites of which only 6 new missionaries will be coming to start their 18 month mission. There are also 125 Nauvoo Temple missionaries which will be cut in about half in the next few weeks.

 It is a tradition that those leaving perform a skit after a 7 AM breakfast together. As you can see, there is a large group heading home before winter hits.

 Along with senior couples leaving, the young sister missionaries are all called to go "outbound" for the six winter months. How amazing is that? They get a call to the Nauvoo visitor's center for 18 months, and then during the winter months when everything slows down here, they receive another mission call to somewhere within the United States. We will see some of them again next summer. Others will be going home before spring.

Below are pictures taken of the group that we trained with in Provo last spring. Several of the couples are teamsters and were only called for six months. We decided to gather before their departure. We would have met more often, but Elder Johnson and I were incarcerated in Carthage as you well know and it wasn't logistically possible.

Today is Elder Johnson's Birthday. We've stopped counting years a while back but use it as a time for fun. Last night we invited two missionary couples over for food and games. We couldn't start until about 8:30 PM after Rendezvous was over, and we had a 7 AM choir practice this morning so it was only for a couple of hours. However, we decided that we need to make it happen a little more often. People need people don't you think? It was fun even if it was a short amount of time.

We will be busy with added shifts and school tours starting next week. With the shortage of missionaries, we will have to man more than one sight at a time by leaving signs up of where to go when we're away from a particular site.

Hopefully, we won't have too many new sites all at once. Last week it took us 35 minutes to figure out how to open the Seventy's Hall. It was a crazy solution. The door was swollen shut from all the humidity and we simply had to smack it hard with our body weight.

Fall colors have started but the flowers are still in full bloom. I'll have pictures for you by next week.