It is warming up here. The other day we hit 95, with high humidity, and in the evening it poured with lots of lightening. Next day, it was 80, blue skies and a breeze. Weather is quite unpredictable here. One day, we were given a "Tormado Watch", but none ever materialized. There hasn't been a tornado in Nauvoo since 1850.
Pam and I are performing in our Rendezvous shows twice a week, and starting in a week, we will be adding two "Sunset on the Mississippi" shows each week. I have been given the cast assignment of narrating the Sunset show. I have also been assigned to be the Site Leader of the Blacksmith shop. This coming week, we will be visited by 10 different school tours, about 40 each tour. They come in in school buses from all over Iowa, Illinois and Missouri, and grades from 3rd to 9th. They take wagon rides, come to the Blacksmithshop, the Brick shop, the Bakery, and the Family Living Center, then spend the afternoon playing pioneer games in Pioneer Pastimes. We are kept hopping during those tours.,,,,shuffling kids in and out in a semi-organized fashion, giving them demonstrations and telling them about the pioneers. Quite interesting.
We are doing great, we see the Starrs and the Nemecks fairly often, and for old folks, we feel quite alert and physically able to handle the busy-ness,
Addison Pratt:
Continuing our stories of the early pioneers, let me tell you about Addison Pratt, a native of New Hampshire. As a young man aged 19, he was a sailor on a whaling ship in the South Seas. He visited with the Polynesians and upon his return to the United States, settled in Nauvoo and joined the Mormon church. He discussed his trips to the south seas with Joseph Smith and told Joseph he thought the polynesians would be interested in the Book of Mormon. Little did he know that his comments would lead to his being called to a mission to the south seas in May, 1843. When Brigham Young set him apart as a Missionary, Brigham gave him a blessing that he would be a "swift messenger to the nations of the earth", and he was promised that he would return safe and sound and "rejoice again with his family". He left on his mission leaving his wife and four daughters in Nauvoo.
He was gone for 5 years, formed the first Polynesian Branch of the church, lost two of his three companions during the mission to various illnesses, and eventually returned to the United States via San Francisco, traveling on to Salt Lake City, arriving there on September 28, 1848. There, he found that his wife and four daughters had arrived safely in Salt Lake just 5 days earlier in a wagon train. The Lord's promise had come true.
Pictures:
These are all taken at the Sarah Granger Kimball Home here in Nauvoo. All are real plants and flowers. Pam is getting to be quite a photographer.
Below is one of the Plaques along the "Trail of Hope", which is the long road leading from Nauvoo down to the Mississippi river, where all the wagon trains started their travel to Salt Lake. The plaques are all taken from the journals and diaries of the pioneers written in 1846, as they left their homes and started across the Mississippi, and traveled across the plains.
And one more plaque
We appreciate and love all of you......thanks for the emails and comments. We will send more next week.
Jerry and Pam
