Arrival at Nauvoo

We arrived here on Thursday night March 17,  The following day we met with our Mission President, Garth Hall.  He is from Idaho and worked as a college football coach for Ricks, Oregon State and a few other teams.  He was previously a Mission President in Orlando.  He began his service in January and will serve for two years.  He will be our mission president for our entire mission.  We were assigned as site missionaries.  There are 25 sites and a visitor center here in Nauvoo that we staff every day during the week including Sundays from 1-5 pm. After just two weeks we have been assigned to the print shop, bakery, brickyard, blacksmith shop, visitor center, tin shop, seventies hall, Browning gun shop, cultural hall, Lyon Drug Store and Sarah Granger home.  We have a site book that has summaries of the history for each site and spiritual messages we can learn from that site. While serving in the sites we wear period clothing.  We wear church clothes when serving at the Visitor Center,

Normally we are assigned separate sites every day.  On Sundays we serve together.  Here we are at the Print Shop on our first Sunday.

Leah inside the Print Shop

Larry at the Blacksmith.  Using the forge, hammer and anvil we make a small horseshoe out of a small cylindrical rod.

Our schedule is very busy.  Here is an example of my very first week.  In the summer the sites start and end time extends one hour on each end and we do two Rendevous Shows each night.  You can see that Susan Easton Black is now in town and she is doing two lectures a week.  They begin at 8:30 PM We are so tired at night we are having a hard time staying awake in her awesome presentations.

The town population is 1100.  There is one gas station, one supermarket, one police car and one pharmacy.  The closest Walmart is in Keokuk, Iowa which is around 30 minutes away.  Nearest Sam's club - one hour in Quicny, Ill and nearest Costco - 1.5 hour in Iowa City.  We are totally enjoying the smallness.  It is 1 minute to get gasoline, 2 minutes to the temple, 3 minutes to church and 5 minutes down the hill to the sites.  Last week on our Preparation Day we visited Amish country in Iowa. Other day trips we can take are to Springfield to see the Lincoln Museum and Hanibal to see a Mark Twain exhibit.

We are living in our own house that the Church rents from someone.  We have a piano for Leah's music, two bedrooms, a dishwasher and a detached two car garage.  We are feeling quite at home. Harry and Nancy Schultz who served here and left late last year also lived in the same house. We agree with their assessment that it is like living in your Grandmothers house.

It is a real blessing to be serving in Nauvoo,  Each day we are learning more about the history and trials of the people who lived here between 1839 and 1846.  Their stories are so inspirational and as we learn about them it increases our testimony that the Lord's hand was involved in all of the events to advance the church through this time period.  We love the Lord, his Son Jesus Christ and being missionaries.

Love to all - Elder and Sister Rober