This is the home of our District Leaders, The Clements, where we have our monthly district meetings. They live right by the Mississippi River. They have a great view and a great home. It was just recently totally remodeled and updated.

This is the view from their house. They really are this close to the river.

More Fall leaves before they are all gone! The weather went from a high on Monday in the mid 70s to a high today of 45 - a drop of 25 degrees in 4 days!

Our Mission doctors home buried in Fall leaves (normally there is green grass all around his home!

Before the snow falls and they take the wagons around Nauvoo away for the winter and put them in storage I decided to take pictures of them. Those of you who have been to Nauvoo do you know where they are located?

The end of Parley Street where the early Saints crossed the Mississippi in Feb 1846 being forced to leave Nauvoo

 More pictures of the Nauvoo temple at early dawn. These are for all the people who sleep in!!!

Looking at the temple from my sidewalk - the white steeple in the center

 My cute grandson, Weston Port, recently read the book, "Flat Stanley" in his 2nd Grade class. It is a book about a boy who got flattened by a bulletin board and traveled across the country in a big envelope. So I received a big envelope last week with Weston's version of Flat Stanley and he wanted to see Nauvoo and what I do. So I took pictures of us spending time together and sent the pictures and Flat Stanley back to Weston! So here are the pictures of our adventures together.....

In the "green room" waiting to go on stage in the "Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo" show

Flat Stanley, Sister Schultz and me

Carving pumpkins for the Nauvoo Halloween celebration

Checking out our ancestors that lived in Nauvoo in Land & Records

Spent the day in Carthage going on tours

Inside the Carthage Visitor's Center with the Prophet Joseph Smith look down on us

Flat Stanley just couldn't resist playing in the Fall leaves

Wanted to climb the tree outside my home

Stopped by the brickyard to get the famous red clay Nauvoo brick

wanted to go for a wagon ride, but had to wait for the horses to show up

Stopped by the Print Shop to see where books and newswpapers were printed

Of course we had to go by Brigham Young's home! He was the great colonizer of the West

This one's for you LaReda Webb Porter! I jumped on this wagon hoping to get a ride down Parley Street

Dropped in to the blacksmith shop to pick up my "prairie diamond ring" and miniature horseshoe from Elders Olsen and Schultz

Met a couple of Nana's friends at the Post Office - Sisters Broadhead and Redd

For sure we had to stop by the Scovil Bakery to get the little gingerbread cookie

Saying goodbye on Nana's porch before heading back to Ladera Ranch California

 This week has been a very busy week and one that I will long remember. The Nauvoo Mission hosted a Mission Presidents Seminar and about 26 Mission Presidents and their wives were welcomed to Nauvoo by Apostle L. Tom Perry, Elder Ronald Rasband, General President of the Seventies, and other General Seventies and Area Authorities and their wives. Every missionary here was involved in one way or another. Elder Perry and Elder Rasband spoke today in our Sacrament meeting. It was a wonderful and memorable meeting that I will always remember. Our Mission President Elder Gibbons and his wife were amazing hosts. What a blessing to our mission to have so many VIPs here at the same time. The weather has been perfect and the leaves all seemed to be in their most splendid beauty for this important event.

Apostle L. Tom Perry

A picture of Elder Perry and his wife Barbara - story to follow about my experience with her

Elder Ronald A. Rasband

In preparation for all these wonderful leaders coming to Nauvoo, we asked them to send us names of their ancestors that lived here in Nauvoo and then the ladies in Land & Records would research them and put information, maps, etc on a disk for them to take home and review. So our staff at Land & Records have been extremely busy getting this information gathered and ready to present to those that sent us their names. (Not everyone took advantage of this opportunity or did not have ancestors here in Nauvoo). Elder Perry and his wife did not send us any information and so we didn't have a disk ready for them. I felt bad, but there wasn't anything I could do without the names of their ancestors!

Well yesterday afternoon as I was serving in Land & Records, in walks Sister Barbara Perry and wants to sit down at the computers and research her information and put it on a disk! So for the next hour or so I was able to sit and help her place names for her and her husband on disks to take home. I also invited her to make pass along cards from her profile on mormon.org and gave her my pass along card with the instruction sheet created by some in our mission on how to do it step by step. She was so excited. What a beautiful and gracious woman! I wanted to take a picture with her, but we had been told not to ask this of any of our special guests. So my writing about this will have to do. But I am going to follow up with her in a few weeks and see what she thought of the information she received on the disks and see if she has questions about how to do her pass along cards!!!

Last night was the big "Bootiful Nauvoo" Halloween Town Party. It is a BIG DEAL here! There were probably 2,000 - 3,000 people that came for the event! Over 500 carved and lit pumpkins lined the streets for people to enjoy seeing great designs!  A small parade kicked off the event and our Historic Nauvoo Mission had a "Crazy band" float! We had lots of crazy instruments and had fun Halloween music playing as we went down the Main Street of town. Trust me when I say we definitely had some "crazy people" on the float too! The parade was over in 15 minutes but it gave kids and families the opportunity to walk in a parade in costumes!

Our Crazy Band

My former companion, Sister Lisa Brown giving me a happy smile before we head out

The horses were really put to the test with all the noise and craziness going on!

looking down the parade route

Me, Sister Schultz and Sister Jones

Sisters Thomas, Schultz and Jones

Look who came all the way from California

 

The Girl Scouts lead the parade

I couldn't resist jumping in with the Girl Scouts

The Ghost Buster car arrived to be in the parade

The Ghost Busters came to hand out candy along the parade route

Here we go!

Tried to take a picture while heading down the parade route - didn't work too good!

We sure had a "Crazy" time playing our "Crazy" instruments and watching the Hatch's try to dance.
A fun time was had by all!

 Here are just a sample of the lighted pumpkins along the Main Street before my phone died and pictures stopped! Darn......

I carved the two easy ones in the middle!

Everywhere you can see little lights are where the pumpkins are......