July 17, 2014

This past week and a half has been the craziest and most exciting of my mission. No lie. No day was just a regular day.

Sunday, we were in Carthage and my grandpa and aunt Cheryl came! I got to give them a tour. 

On Monday, we were in the Heber C. Kimball (he is a baller, in case you didn't know. He's a star in both pageants and was just overall a great guy) home and my parents arrived! I knew I would probably see them for the first time in a year while wearing a pioneer dress in someone else's house. I was actually toward the end of giving a tour when I heard my mom's voice downstairs and I panicked just a bit and told the group "Um my mom is here" and ran downstairs. Sister Etherington brought them down just in time to see the reunion. It was tender. I got to give them a tour (half sign language and half english, it was interesting) and then we shut down our site for a while to go have interviews with President Gibbons. We walked into the VC in our pioneer dresses and of course who else would be there but a gaggle of Iowa Des Moines elders? Judge not, elders. 

Tuesday- PAGEANT BEGAN!!! 3100 people came the first night. Holy COW right? Oh it was like coming home again. I love the pageant. We are at the country fair from 7:00 to 8:30, when the pageant begins, then we come back later (usually around (9:45 to 10:00 depending on if it's the British or Nauvoo pageant) to post-greet. People just had an exceptionally spiritual experience so we go back to talk to them. We're usually out very late and get to bed around 11:30. 

Wednesday- It was the first official showing of the British pageant in America! Here's the deal with the British pageant. Last year was it's first performance in England and Elder Holland saw it and said "Every member of the Church has to see this" so it came to Nauvoo! It details the missionaries leaving from Nauvoo and going to the British Isles. It's really incredible and we don't know when it will ever be back in Nauvoo. Apparently it will travel around until it gets a permanent home. 

Also on Wednesday, President Gibbons' non-member friends were here and we were assigned to just be their guides and take them around and do whatever they wanted. Sweet, right? So we did a wagon ride and watched Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration with them. They had a lot of questions about the church, which we were surprised about. I thought if we could get one gospel topic in, that would be great. But seriously they didn't want to talk about anything else! So they watched the British pageant with President and Sister Gibbons that night and we gave them each personalized Book of Mormons afterward, which they greatly appreciated. Us and President are keeping in contact with them and seeing if they would be willing to progress.

Thursday- We were in the Riser Boot shop and gave TWENTY-FOUR tours. Yeah. 24. Let me tell you, I know all the ins and outs of making a shoe now. That evening was also transfers and (drumroll) Sister Etherington and I are staying together! Yay!

Okay so more on this next week. Too much excitement and too little time!

Ashley