Our debut as Thomas and Elizabeth and Us in the Rain

"Listen carefully, Thomas!  You'll be tripping over your whiskers before you see me sittin' atop any wagon leaving Nauvoo!"

"And who is it that drove our team all across Missouri, all by herself?"

Elder Gifford, Me, S/Thomas soaked to the gills in front of the fallen tree.

A day we won't forget.

Here is the fallen tree that broke in the rain and fell just 10 feet from where we had been standing.  It was so scary.  I have never been in the rain where the sky just opened up and dropped buckets on us.  The rain was going sideways. 

This Week in Nauvoo

S/Clement, S/Aaron, Me, showing off our pantaloons.

Some of my favorite young sisters.  S/Hintze, S/Newell, S/Gines

Ahh!  I've finally got him where I want him.

Dave about to get his head chopped off. 

Here we are at Nauvoo on the Road.  We were at Ft. Madison at the historic fort for a celebration.  It is fun to travel with all the missionaries.  We sing "We're On The Road Again" as we travel.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

June 22, 2014
Dear Friends and Family,

What a week!  Life just keeps getting more and more busy.  We are all gearing up for July when all the visitors come to see the pageants.  We are looking forward to Faye Averall and her sister, Amy, in July followed by Kim Verespy and her family, Kendra, Michelle and Trevor and then my sister and brother-in-law, Sally and Jerry Curtis and part of their family in August.  We can hardly wait to show them all around Nauvoo. 

One of the highlights of this week was Thursday working in the Pioneer Pastimes.  It is a fun park with pioneer dress up clothes, a play house, a school house and all kinds of stilts, rings and pioneer toys.  It is a place where children can play as they get a bit tired of looking at the sites.  My companion for the day, Sister Thomas, and I were a bit complaining about not loving it there because it is so hot and humid.  About ten minutes before three, the thunder started booming.  I asked the family who was there how long it would be before the rain came.  They were leaving and they said about 20 minutes.  We decided to bring the dress-up clothes and rocking chairs under the shelter so they wouldn't get wet.  Now remember, I am a California girl.  When it rains in California it is light and intermittent. 

I told Sister Thomas we should start bringing things in as people wouldn't be coming any more if it rained.  She agreed and we began by loading these sheep that are made out of logs in.  They weight about 50 pounds.  (They need to go on a diet!).  Just as we got them in the play house, the skies opened up (this is about 2 minutes after the guy said 20 minutes) and it just poured buckets on us.  It was raining sideways.  About five minutes later, the huge tree we had been sitting under split in two and fell to the ground right in front of us.  If those people hadn't left, it would have fallen right on them.  It was not more that 10 feet from us.  We were like the Nauvoo emergency, we were screaming.  I called Dave to come and help us and he was just getting out of the shower and didn't even know it was raining.  By the time he got there we were soaked to the bone, my apron was so heavy with rain it was dragging on the ground.  I had never seen that much rain fall out of the sky at once (until today).  We were lucky we were not killed.  It is a memory I will never ever forget.  I even put it on Facebook.  I will add the pictures to my blog.  I will put this letter on and add photos.  You can look at it.  It is Curtis Review of Old Nauvoo at Blogspot. 

On Friday, we had our debut as Thomas and Elizabeth in "Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo."  Yes, we were very nervous.  Even though I have directed a million plays, I have only been in about 4 plays in my life.  We did two performances that night and it was really nice because when we finished and came down in the green room, our cast all applauded for us.  It is so nice to work with the people here.  Everyone is so supportive.  We are having an absolute wonderful and spiritual mission.  I will be putting a couple of pictures on the blog of our debut so you can see.  One of our friends came and took some pictures.

We went to a sociable tonight put on by the Contemporary Dance and Synthesis group from BYU.  It was wonderful.  Even though they were dancers, they did a lot of singing and telling the story of Joseph Smith.  We are so lucky to get to participate in these spiritual events.  Friday is the commemoration of  the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum at Carthage.  We hope to be able to go but we have "Rendezvous"  at 6:30.  We hope to go for a least part of it.  They are closing the sites at 4:00.

Murphy is doing great.  We have prayed for some mighty miracles since we have been here and have found ourselves to be very blessed.  He even went on the boat ride around Lake Arrowhead and loved it and they loved him.  We have been praying for our singing voices and though we probably won't make it into the Metropolitan Opera, we were adequate.  We pray for those in our ward who are hurt or sick.

Please know that we love you and feel your support.  This has been life-changing for us.  I don't think you can really realize the faith of those who walked these streets and then were forced to leave until you have been here yourself.  I will never forget what was done for me by these early pioneers.

 Love,

Sherry and Dave

ONWARD, EVER ONWARD!!

Dear Friends and Family,

Another week has passed by.  I can't believe how fast the time is going.  We are loving this mission more and more.  We have had the opportunity to hear Susan Easton Black give her talks on the prophets every week when we don't have "Rendezvous" performances.  It is a real highlight of our mission.  She is married to George Durrant.  We, and our friends the Judds, used to follow him around on the "Know Your Religion Series" because we thought he was such a great speaker.  George and Susan are temple missionaries here in Nauvoo.  He shook our hand the other night and said, "I'm sure glad you got old enough to go on a mission."

This mission is more that anything that we anticipated.  We love serving here.  I think you have to be here in Nauvoo to really experience what the faith and sacrifices were that these people were asked to endure and they did it willingly because they wanted to.  That faith and sacrifice has gotten into the marrow of my bones.  Dave and I are both still learning but we are getting more confident and more knowledgeable every day.

The Living Legends from BYU are here this week and their show is fabulous.  They have wonderful costumes and dances.  They perform on the outdoor stage and then gave a sociable for the missionaries last night.  The performers bore their testimonies of the gospel  and sang many songs.  It was so uplifting and so inspiring.  We are so lucky to have them here to share their spirit with us.

This is our last week of practice for our vignette in "Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo."   We have our last rehearsal in the morning and we make our debut on the 20th.  We are pretty nervous as we have a duet to sing.  Of course, we both have colds and I had another of my usual bouts with laryngitis this week.  Every time I get remotely ill, it goes right to my chest and lungs.  We are praying for a Nauvoo miracle that we are able to sing the song without slaughtering it.    It is such a beautiful little song and we would like to do it justice and not sound like Kermit and Miss Piggy.  I wear one of those day caps in the play and in the vignette.  I was telling Kendra that some ladies look adorable in those caps, but I look like the Snoopy's enemy the Red Baron in my white bomber cap.

We are very close to the young sister missionaries here.  We love them a lot.  They usually say, "Sister Curtis, you are so funny."  They say that even when I'm not trying to be funny.  They are truly examples of the believers.  I admire them so much.  They do a lot of teaching with the seniors in the training meetings. We also have a wonderful mission president.  He is very quiet but dynamic at the same time.  He does not micro manage but teaches like a general authority (he was in the the second quorum of seventy).  He teaches you and then expects you to go forth and do it.  He has a very nice wife who is a lot of fun.   We are still very sad that Nan and Richard are not here as they would have been fabulous and we would have loved to serve with them.

Thank you for the notes that you send to me.  I try to spend one night a week and respond to them as I love hearing from you all.  It is such a different world here.  We don't have a television or radio so we just go through life not knowing what is going on in the world.  I do have my phone and Facebook and I try to talk to my kids every week.  I do hear of things going on at home and we keep those people in our prayers and put thier names on the prayer roll of the Nauvoo Temple.  We love you and you are not far from our hearts.

My blog is up and running and I have posted a lot of pictures.  It is Curtis Review of Old Nauvoo.blogspot.com.  I will post this letter there but be sure to look back at some older posts - like the one about the bat in our house!  I will try to put it on FB when I put a new post  or you can just look every week.

We miss you and love you,

Sherry and Dave

This Week in Nauvoo -

We were so pleased to meet with Dave's Nephew, Jeff Gough and his wife and son.  They came to Nauvoo to take their son, Joseph to the temple.  We were able to attend the temple with them and then they took us to lunch at Angelini's in Keokuk.  It was a really fun day for us.

Here we are at the mission breakfast that they have once a month.  From left to right; Sister Scott, Sister Mengel (leaving in June and in charge of the sewing room), Sister Harris, Sister Jones (she is leaving this month also - her husband is the vet). Sister Thomas, me and Sister Hoen.  We have made so many new and good friends.

On The Road Again.  We are leaving for Nauvoo on the Road.  We went to a Renaissance  Fair in Keokuk.  We were only there for two hours when the skies opened up and we were rained on.  We decided to pack up and leave and then stopped in Hamilton at the DQ for ice cream.  From L to R:  Sister Hansen, Sister Poulson, me, Dave, Sister and Elder Toomer, Elder Aaron, Sister Allred and Sister Russell.  I love working with the young single sisters.

We saw this coming home from our "Sunset on the Mississippi" show and just had to stop and look over the river.  The river is beginning to get water lilies on it.    It is full of geese families, moms, dads and babies.  The skies here are incredible.  It is so beautiful here in Nauvoo.

Just before we left the Renaissance Fair.  The sisters are ducking in from the rain.  I think they were having way too much fun.