Wow! What A Ride!!!!!!

Here is Elder Curtis standing on our front porch!

Here I am standing on the same porch but turned the other way.

My dear friends,

Well, we hit the road running here in Nauvoo.  We have now been here a month.  This is completely a different experience from our last mission to Nauvoo.  I will start at the very beginning.

While I was innocently at home in Crestline, one of the missionaries here in Nauvoo emailed me and said that there was a rumor going around that I was going to be the next "Rendezvous" director.  My heart leaped - and not for joy and I told Dave, "Oh, I hope not."   It is the most brutal job here in Nauvoo besides the scheduler.  I immediately wrote back and told her that it was not true and to stop listening to rumors.

About three weeks later, a call came from the mission president, President Gibbons, asking if I would take on this huge responsibility.  It is not just directing (which I love) but sending out a schedule where 180 missionaries are put into three casts and you send a spreadsheet out each week with the lines and directions to all the missionaries telling them which number they are in, which side they enter from, which lines they speak that night, etc.  .  There are words like: first wave stage, screeners, pottery, kickers, whip and clip clop, horses . . . . . . . . . . and it goes on and on.  The directing I can do but I had to learn Microsoft Excel to do these spreadsheets.  Me?  A computer guru?  By May 25 there will be about 60 missionaries in each cast.  They casts are called, Emma Hale, Lucy Mack and Sarah Granger after three great women who lived here in Nauvoo.  We have 10 to 20 new missionaries coming in each week who are  assigned to one of the casts and so I am constantly teaching the new missionaries the songs and actions so that we can add them to their show.

Dave and I both had surgery for skin cancer the week we left. Dave had his surgery the morning of the 26th of March and we literally left from the hospital parking lot and headed to Nauvoo so that I could get as much training from the outgoing director as I could.  I am working 12 hour days, but with the Lord's help, I get up the next morning and feel ready to go again. 

I love working with the missionaries and encouraging the new people that this is something that they can do.  Most have never been on the stage before and are scared spitless.  After a few times, they begin to realize that it is actually fun.  Rendezvous is their identity here.   It takes a huge mission and makes it so they have a group to identify with.  Each cast goes to the temple together once a month and they usually have a potluck, or something.

I don't get to be in any shows because I am at Rendezvous every night with every cast, but it is rewarding, and maybe someday I will be confident enough with scheduling on the computer that I might actually like it.  My favorite part is working on the vignettes with the couples and directing them and teaching the new missionaries.  It is not much different in teaching seniors than it is teaching second graders.  They are both innocent and willing to do what they are asked.

Dave is going to have a vignette with young James in one of the casts this summer.  He loves being in Rendezvous and Sunset by the Mississippi.  He is the site leader over the Browning Gun Shop and that is a favorite place of his to serve. 

We are working hard and feel very blessed to once again to be in Nauvoo.  Nauvoo is not a place but a feeling.  You cannot even imagine what those early saints endured and willingly left because of their great faith, until you have been here and walked these sacred streets.

We are living in the William Weeks home. William Weeks designed the Nauvoo Temple, the Cultural Hall and the Seventies Hall here in Nauvoo.  We are about a three minute walk to the temple.  This home was dedicated by President Hinckley and has a wonderful spirit.  It is tiny but wonderful.  We are within walking distance to the Visitor's Center and the outdoor stage where Sunset is performed.  Our home has a Federalist style architecture with a fireplace in every room.

This is your last chance, come and visit.  We pretty much have guests from June 21 until July 20.  Before and after that, our home is open to you.  We will plan your trip and get your tickets.

We love and miss you all but know that this is where we need to be at this time.  We love the Lord and have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel.  We feel we are answering Wilford Woodruff's prayer when he asked the Lord to remember the sacrifices of the saints.  I believe by serving here we fulfill that prayer and by you coming to visit here, you are also fulfilling that prayer. 

Love,

Elder and Sister Curtis

It was nice of them to have a bonfire for us on our arrival day!  Just kidding.  This is the prairie burn.  They burn an acre once a year to show just how fast a wildfire could take out this little town.  This happened about an hour after we arrived.

This is Sister Jones, the out going Rendezvous director.  She spent hours training me.