Monday, June 9, 2014

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

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