Mark Twain

Good looking uniform don't you think.  This was outside a theatre showing an old non talking movie of the Adventures of Mark Twain.  It had the words under the scenes.

We took the one hour tour on the Mississippi River.  This boat is named the Mark Twain. 

This is out of order, but this is the movie that was showing. 

Meanwhile back on the boat.  The numbers on the bridge do not have anything to do with the water depth, well I guess in a way they do, but the numbers show the height that is allowed to go under the bridge.  So the number 60 means the boat could be 60' tall, the number 30 would be 30 feet tall.  Our little Mark Twain boat was 30 feet tall.  There are times, the captain told us, that the river is that high. 

This is the left over sign from the Storrs Ice and Coal Company.  Back before refrigeration they would store and cut ice from the river during the winter and store the ice blocks in straw and then sell them all summer.  The Storrs family did this for several years.  When electricity and refrigeration came to town, they opened an appliance store to keep up with the times.  Now the storage area here is just a ghost town, kinda. 

This lady keeps turning up at the same places I go.  Kinda cute isn't she. 

This is the famous light house that is in the books of Mark Twain.  Just a tourist attraction now. 

Between the town of Hannibal and the port of Hannibal are the rail road tracks.  Lots and lots of trains go through every day.  Coal cars, oil tankers, everything.  Long and loud.  Reminds me of Spokane. 

Trip to Quincy

We discovered this sign on an empty lot here in Nauvoo.

Interesting words don't you think?  "Self appointed body guard for Joseph Smith."

Well, he did love Joseph.

Outside of Nauvoo, matter of fact everywhere the dry corn husks are being harvested.  Surprise to me that it dries completely on the husk before they harvest.  It is dumped into an underground conveyor system that then takes the dry corn up to the silo's. 

This little guy cuts the stalks, separates the corn, blows the stalks in little pieces out the back side.  The corn is stored inside a tank on the machine, then a dump truck pulls along side and the corn is blown into the truck, then to the silos.  Very dry and dusty work.  The harvester machine is air conditioned, work on a GPS system, and has a computer to measure the amount of corn cut per acre and the moisture content of the corn.  What a day to live in such a time we have progressed to a machine that can measure all this. 

Every few miles a portion of the cornfields are set aside for a cemetery.  Doesn't seem to fail.  Lots of small cemeteries. 

The town of Quincy had a tornado late spring.  In this part several of the large trees blew down.  The parks department is still working on the clean up, three months later.  There was quite a bit of damage to homes too.  Look at the diameter of this tree. 

You might be able to see some of the damage to the tops of the trees. 

This was a different tree from the one above in the first picture.  Still a pretty good sized trunk. 

Not sure what this is.  On the south side of Quincy, on a back road heading towards the Missouri border is this small granite mountain.  There are several entrances to the base of the mountain.  Lots of signs saying to keep out, restricted area.  One of the signs says it is for long term secured storage.  ???  No guards but lots of mountain to store  something in, but what?

Good day, short outing on a P day afternoon.



CATCH UP TIME....

This is the picture of Christ and the two Lamanite children at the foot of the stairs that lead down to the baptistery.  It is very moving.  I have been told that this picture was painted for this temple and is new this year.  The picture itself is about five feet tall, maybe six feet.  The eyes of the Savior and the children follow you around the room.  Great picture.  No I do not know who took the picture or how it - the picture - got out of the temple.

This is a rather poor picture of a really great sunset on the Mississippi.  It was kinda eerie to be honest.  The photo does not do it justice.  The clouds were very strange as they went in front of the sun. 

What does a site missionary do when they do not have any visitors?  They go outside and rest on a park bench and play a guitar.  And it was lovely.  This woman is so very sweet.  Her husband is one of the teamsters here, so she works in the sites with other women.  As there are about 25 teamsters, most of the women do not get to work with their husbands.  [Very different than the Temple Missionaries where we work all the time with our spouse].  She is in front of the Lucy Mack House and we saw this out our kitchen window one morning.  She in about five feet tall herself.   A little firecracker I think.

On Labor Day the town of Nauvoo sponsored a carnival and other things here in town.  The event was called the "Grape Festival".  One of the activities on Saturday morning was a 5-K run through old Nauvoo.  This was in front of our apartment.  Quite a few runners and walkers all morning long. 

On our way to church in Kirksville MO, we go through several small towns.  On one of the towns Patty saw this sign at an old deserted restaurant.  Zelpha's and Johns Burger Bar.  Zelpha was Patty's mothers name. 

No - I do not know what they do at a Mule Festival in Missouri.   No I am not going all the way over there just to find out.  Sorry.   Hee Haw! 

The tree out our front window has these red berries popping out.  Some one said it is a Magnolia Tree?   The berries have been forming in the white pods all summer, then this last week they started popping out.  Now the birds come by the dozens and swallow three or four berries at a time and then fly away.  In two or three minutes they are back and do this again.  I do not know if they are saving them someplace or what.  Quite a sight to see though.  And when 50 or more come to the tree they make a lot of noise.   The birds are all squawking and their wings are fluttering trying to hover like a hummingbird, so it is loud.  Well kinda.

On Labor Day the Temple Missionaries had a pot luck BBQ.  Bring your own meat and bun, the salads and other items were assigned.  Most all of the people came.  Yes - most everyone ate too much.  It doesn't take too much food to overfeed most 70 and 80 year olds.

Two days ago about 100+ geese showed up on the lawns.  They might be on the move south - don't know.  But there sure was a lot of them.  Don't know what they were eating out of the grass either. 

The family got together and bought me these nifty book ends for my birthday.  Aren't they just great!  Patty knew I was looking at them in a local bookstore, so she managed to get the kids to all come together for a family gift.  What a great idea from a great wife.  What great kids to want to participate.  The only disappointing part is we are all apart.  To bad we all live in different parts of the country.  But so great that this still works for the memories from all.  Thanks.

Up to date now.  Several of the Temple Missionaries are starting to leave.  We have about 20 couples that were here for 12 - 18 months and they are going home.  The Nauvoo Temple district does not have enough possible workers - close enough - to be in the temple as shift workers all winter, so the church supplies these 20 couples for longer periods of time.  The six month missionaries, like us, are about 112 workers this year.  Some of the new couples -  that are called to replace them will be arriving soon now too.  A couple of the missionaries have gone home for health reasons.  Two have been called home to serve in new temple presidencies that are being trained starting next month.  One of the missionaries that was leaving said, you can tell when we start getting "trunky".  It is when we start checking the home town news, which no one cared about before now.

Two things I can share..

I had two little experiences this week that I can share on the blog.
     We had a convert of one month come into the baptistery.  The first time she has been in the temple in her life.  She was quite emotional about the beauty of the font and the oxen.  She had brought with her two names to be baptised.  One was her mother and the other was her grandmother.  She was so excited to do this proxy work for her family.  She - herself - looked to be about 45 to 50 years old.  Yes, she cried when she was baptised for these two women who she loved.  There were tears and hugs she gave to the baptiser, she didn't know him either, first time she had seen him.  When she came out of the font, received her towel and was going down the stairs, the coordinator told her to go to 'that' door so she could rise off and get ready to leave.  She replied, "I DON'T WANT TO RINSE OFF, I WANT THIS FEELING TO STAY FOREVER.  I HAVEN'T FELT THIS GOOD IN A LONG TIME.  I thought that was a cute reply by a woman so full of faith.
     The next incident happened in the Initiatory area.  We have a service missionary working in Nauvoo that was sent here from his full time mission in Africa.  He is about 20-years old and happy to be here.  Not sure what his reason was to be sent here to Nauvoo.  Anyway he was sitting in the Initiatory area, waiting for the time to begin, he was to be the patron.  When he was sitting there waiting, one of the temple missionaries that has a little more aggressiveness than he should was telling him what he needed to know about being a missionary.  Where to find the Oath and Covenant of the M/P.  This young man was and is having trouble remembering.  He said he could not remember anything he reads after about 24 hours.  He also said he could not memorize anything, not even the Articles of Faith when he was 12 years old.  So this temple missionary thought he could fix him or help him to remember some things.  It was tense and luckily it was time to move on to the initiatory area to begin.  We went to the first booth and I was talking to him, administering the preface and the wording about first ordinance.  He looked up at me during the entire time, big brown eyes, kinda like a puppy that had been scolded.  [You probably know the look as you might have seen this before].  By the time he had made three rounds in initiatory I saw his countenance change.  I saw him as a little boy, doing the best he could.  He went on his mission as he was asked to and might have been expected to from home.  Then I saw him as I think Heavenly Father might see him.  Doing the best he can, trying with all his heart to do the right thing.  Perhaps the parable of the talents would fit here.  He was trying to do a six talent job, but he only had two talents.  Love and Desire.  I was so impressed that I was able to see this in his face, in his eyes, and experience the love that H/F has for him for doing the best he can.   So grateful to be in the temple everyday to feel this, learn this and to hopefully be a better person for this experience.