Week 32--February 2 to February 9, 2014

Hello again:

These sure seem to roll around often.  This has been a busy week with something every night in addition to our regular service shifts during the day at the "sites".

If any of you are thinking about coming to visit Nauvoo this would be a great summer to come. This summer is the 10th Anniversary of the Nauvoo Pageant so extra events are being added to the normal schedule.  In addition to the Nauvoo Pageant there will be another Pageant called "Truth Will Prevail".  This pageant is also called the British Pageant and was held in Great Britain last year.  Because of its success the decision was made to show it here in America and they chose Nauvoo to be the site.  The Nauvoo Pageant will be held on Tuesdays, Thursday's and Saturday's while the British pageant will be on Wednesday's and Friday's.  There are other special events planned in addition to the normal summer activities.  So this would be a great year to visit Nauvoo!!!

We are looking forward to the visit next month of our son, Robert, and his family to Nauvoo.  They are coming to visit before Brenna leaves on her mission to Virginia.  Brenna will be going to the Temple on February 15th and we are just so proud of her.  She will be a great missionary setting a good example for all her cousins.  Hope that the snow is all gone by then.  We received about 7 inches on the last weekend of January and it snowed another 5 inches on Tuesday, February 4th.  Now the cold!!!! 

We received an email from our good friends, Max and Deanna Wade who are serving in the Edmonton Alberta Canada mission working with the YSA (Young Single Adults).  They are great with young people and so we know they are in heaven with their calling. 

We love our church meetings each Sunday.  Speakers are always wonderful and couples take turns giving Gospel Doctrine lessons and Priesthood-Relief Society lessons.  These senior couples are so experienced in the Gospel and have such great ways to present lessons.  But you can tell which ones are okay with technology and which do not want anything to do with computers.  We have an assignment to teach the Relief Society and Priesthood lessons in a couple of weeks.

We had our Zone Conference on Sunday night that was taught by our interim Mission President, Elder Cheynowth.  He did a very good job. Just before our conference each month there is a "mission slide show" that is presented with a pictorial account of the history of the mission during the previous month.  There are pictures of each missionary and farewells to those leaving, birthdays etc.  The show is always fun to watch and often very funny.

Monday we went to the Cultural Hall to learn about a new job in Rendezvous that we will do sometimes.  It is the curtain puller and prompter.  It was fun to learn.  There were only two people in the audience but it was still fun to watch them have fun and enjoy the show.(the audience was Sister Pincock and Sister Germer, who is our Rendezvous director).   So not a lot of visitors these cold winter nights but we still always do the show even if no one if there.

Tuesday was our preparation day.  We got up early so we could get our shopping done before the snow storm.  We drove to Quincy (about an hour away) so that we could shop at Sam's Club to get our fresh fruit for the next two weeks.  We almost made it before the snow started to fall in Quincy but we beat the storm to Nauvoo so the trip was good.  In the afternoon Sister Pincock went to the Family History Center and Elder Pincock stayed at home to learn more of the "Editor" lines.

snow storm in Nauvoo

watching the snow fall

Sister Pincock was successful in finding some additional names of her family for the temple. We sure would encourage all of you to spend 30 minutes a week on doing indexing.  Indexing is taking information from documents and putting the information into to ancestry files.  It is interesting and not really hard to do.  Indexing does make a difference in families and helps each of us fulfill our missionary assignment from the Prophet.

We had a very interesting Mission Training  meeting this week.  They gave us the history of the horses, wagon rides and carriage. rides.  It was very interesting to hear how the rides and care of the draft horses has improved over the years.  Something that we want to do is to go up to the barns one of these mornings so we can see how they "call the horses in". They say it is a great sight to see when the 18 draft horses come running for their breakfast of grain.

Sister Pincock finished her "lap" quilt and went back to the Family History Center to do some preparation work for some of here relatives, the Peter Kieffer family.  We celebrated  birthday with one of cast members at a fairly good Mexican Restaurant.  It is always fun to party with the missionaries. 

We attended the Susan Eastin Black Durrant lecture this week on the Extermination Order from Governor Boggs in Missouri.  It is always so interesting to hear her talk about the history of the church.  We love the lectures.  This was lecture number 20 of 60 that she is going to give. 

We had quite a few guests this week that were here in Nauvoo for the Exodus Reenactment.  The Reenactment is a celebration of the time in February 1846 when the saints left Nauvoo on a very cold morning for the west.  There were lots of people from Utah and Wyoming who come every year to take part in the walk down Main street and then down to Parley Street to the Mississippi River.  We met quite a few ladies who were here from Star Valley Wyoming to participate.  We thought about our friends the Budd's who we served with in Armenia and were from Star Valley.

Saturday morning was the reenactment ceremony.   We all met early at the Family Living Center for a breakfast of cinnamon rolls, muffins, fruit and nice hot chocolate. 

crowd at Family Living Center before Exodus walk

Brigham Young and wife (E/S Monney) ready for the exodus

After breakfast we all lined up on the street with the carriages, wagons, members of the Nauvoo Legion militia (missionaries who were in uniform with fake guns)

Legion preparing for Exodus Walk

and people who were walking to represent someone that had lived in Nauvoo and left in 1846.   There were also people carrying flags of different countries whose immigrants were here in Nauvoo.

Elder Swapp, Elder Pincock and Elder Jones getting ready for Exodus walk

wagons and horses ready to go

We carried the names of James and Drusilla Hendricks (Elder Pincock's mothers ancestors) who lived here in Nauvoo and were one of the first families to leave that February in 1846.  Very interesting family members.

Sister Pincock walking for Drusilla Hendricks ( Elder Pincock's 3rd Great
Grandmother on his mothers side of the family)

Sister Pincock ready for Exodus walk, February 8, 2014

We all walked down Parley Street (the actual street where the pioneers left) to the River and there had a flag raising ceremony and a small program.  The weather was cold (about 15 degrees) with a little snow and NO wind.  Then we walked back to our cars at the Family Living Center.

walking down Parley Street to the Mississippi River

crowd at the end of Parley Street at the Mississippi

Program at the Exodus Memorial at the end of Parley Street

E/S Pincock standing on the ice covering the Mississippi River at the end
of Parley Street

It was a great experience to carry the names of our relatives and relive somewhat their experience that cold February morning.  We love our ancestors and the sacrifices that they made of us. 

Even though is was a chilly morning  we can probably never appreciate what those pioneers suffered during those days.  Once they left Nauvoo they couldn't turn around and come back like we did to get into our nice comfortable cars and get warm.

On Sunday we had a Sociable (fireside) to end the Exodus Reenactment ceremony.  There was some great music and 8 missionaries were prepared to spend 5 minutes each to tell a little about their ancestors that lived here in Nauvoo.  Elder Pincock was one of those that got to speak.  He told about James and Drusilla Hendricks.  We will attach his talk about the Pincock and Hendricks families who both lived here in Nauvoo to the email about updating our blog.  It is interesting reading so if you have a few minutes it is worth reading.

Elder Pincock is working hard on his lines for the "Editor" part for the musical show "Rendezvous" and probably will be scheduled for his debut the last week of February.


Elder Pincock practicing line for "the Editor" for Rendezvous
with sister Germer our Rendezvous Director

We were serving at the "Tin Shop" on Sunday and in came two people with a 1M license plate.  It was Chad Harris and his wife Allison, (daughter of Larry Atkinson from Rexburg).  They had no idea that we were serving here in Nauvoo and just had time to stop at one of the sites and we were the one's that "just happened" to be there.  Amazing, amazing!!!!!

It seems that we are very busy but enjoying the opportunity to serve our Heavenly Father. We are excited that many family and friends are coming to Nauvoo this summer and would encourage you all to come visit Nauvoo.  There is a special feeling here and lots of history.

We love you all and hope that you have a great week.

E/S Pincock

Weeks 30 and 31: January 19, 2014 ---February 1, 2014

Hello again.

Where does the time go?????  It's been two weeks since we updated the blog.  Hope you are all well.  We so much enjoy the responses and all the blogs and e-mails that we get from everyone. 

We still don't have a new Mission President and there's no word about when he will get here,  but we hear that he is improving and we look forward to meeting  him soon. 

We have started to have practices for the Sunset By the Mississippi show that starts in May.  We have new  songs that are more on the nonsense, funny side.  Elder Pincock and I started to practice so we can do the Clarinet Polka dance -square dance style.  The woman also have an interlude with some clogging in it-we'll see if that happens for me!?   We also have a new job of prompting the actors and actresses in Rendezvous.  We've had to do some training to learn about the curtain pulling, stage set up and things like that.  I think it will be a good change once in a while.  We will be assigned to do it  once every two weeks instead of being in the play that night.  Also, Elder  Pincock is working very hard on his new part as the Editor.  It's is main part in Rendezvous that connects all the stories together that make up the entire play.  Here is an Elder performing the part.

Elder Broadbent as the "editor" in Rendezvous

Elder Pincock  will start performing that part about the 1st of March.   

We are also being involved  in the Humanitarian projects that are underway.  One day I got to sort all of the baby items and make layette kits that contain socks, booties, burp cloth, onesie, diapers, bib, sleeper, hat, mittens, and a blanket.  We put together about 60 kits that day.  All the items are made by the missionaries here in Nauvoo and distributed through the wards in Nauvoo.  The Relief Society presidents come to our work rooms and pick up the items as they become aware of needs.  It's pretty fun to be part of all that goes on here.  Places like Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Women's shelters etc. all benefit from the projects that we work on.

I had the major part of a root canal done last week.  I'm not done but my tooth feels much better and I was very happy with the dentist here that most of the missionaries go to. 

The winter is getting very long and dreary. 

Ice on the Mississippi River

We have really wanted to get away and go somewhere but of course we only have one day a week that we can do anything away from Nauvoo.  Last Friday I couldn't bear to go home so we went for a ride along the river to the north of Nauvoo.  We stopped and bought a really neat knife from the family from Tonga that I told you about that lives in the round house.

Round House

They make and sell little knives that look like a little hack saw and it cuts everything remarkably well.  We have had fun this last week cutting bread, tomatoes, meat, and onions in a jiff. 

really nice cutting knife (home made by Sister Tukuafu)



handle on homemade knife

So after our purchase we drove up through the corn fields north of Nauvoo and back into town where we stopped for dinner at the only restaurant that is still open for the winter.  But we did have a good hamburger for dinner.  Then we went to the best show in town-Rendezvous.  We felt like we had a fun little trip and enjoyed our selves and felt renewed. 

Some missionary friends invited us for dinner on Sat. night.(she was a Zundel from Pocatello)  We had a good dinner but the funnest part was the very competitive game of Rook.  They loved learning the game and ask us everyday when we are going to play again. David and I play it together almost every day.   Then on Sunday night we fixed dinner for our District group.  There were 6 of us for lasagna, green salad, corn, French bread, and cookies and ice cream for dessert.  We had a great lesson about questioning techniques and developed some questions for  the different sites in Nauvoo.  Sometimes when you engage the guests with questions it helps to make the tour more interesting and meaningful.  We get pretty detailed training here.  We have this meeting once a month. 

On our last Preparation Day we went to Burlington and checked out a store that carries accessories for women-purses, scarves, jewelry, lotions, etc.  I found some really cute things including 5 purses, a scarf, and some mango salsa.  The store is really unique with the way it displays the products-all in groups by color.

fun accessory store in Burlington Iowa

Then we had lunch at a fun place called Big Muddy's  on the banks of the Mississippi River.  We had some really good sandwiches.   

Big Muddy's Restaurant

Mississippi River bridge at Burlington Iowa (connecting Iowa and Illinois)

That afternoon we went to the temple and did baptisms for direct relatives-names we researched and found at the Family History Center here in Nauvoo.  It was a wonderful experience.   We would encourage all of you to get on your computers and do some family history work or indexing.  It is part of missionary work that is so necessary.

Love,
E/S Pincock