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| Us as Peter and Abigail last week in Rendezvous |
Dear
Family and Friends,
Sorry for not writing more often. We
are in the super busy summer schedule, and are exhausted by the end of the day.
The two pageants opened this week; The Nauvoo one and The British; Truth Will
Prevail. They are amazing! Words can’t express how professional they are! Great direction and production – amazing
sound and lighting on a large permanent stage with the temple as a backdrop.
There is a large cast of over 100 with 2 core casts that are professional. They
even flew in the British cast who put theirs on last year for the opening of
the Preston, England temple. This is the only year it will be here. I wish all
of you could come and see it. I was choked up with emotion during the whole
thing, since we have so many ancestors who came from England and Scotland.
Before the pageants there is a large country fair, with lots of pioneer games,
a live Celtic Band, bagpipe marching band, dancing, and other activities. You must
all plan on coming here next summer to experience this wonderful place during
the month of July. There are over 2000 people coming into the visitors center
each day. They set up 1500 chairs for the pageants, and about 3000 people each
night come to see it, and sit all over the grass too. We volunteer to help hand
out programs and referral cards when we don’t have our 4 other weekly
performances.
The weather has been crazy here. One
day it will be 90 degrees with humidity of 90%, the next day a thunder and
rainstorm with 65 degrees. We are told this is very typical of the Midwest;
Lots of sporadic rain- that is why everything is so green, and they never water
their crops. I bet California wishes they could have some of this rain. Last
night was a great loud thunderstorm, and tornado watch. We were scared driving
back from our Rendezvous performance because the lightning bolts were right
above our heads.
Here are some amazing pictures of a sunset over the Mississippi River from the temple steps. It is breathtaking here.
We continue
serving mostly in the visitor center, helping people plan their Nauvoo
Experience. We answer lots of questions, and give information. We put on films
and help solve problems. We only serve in the pioneer sites once a week, and we
really look forward to that. The past 2 weeks, I have served in the Post Office
and Seventies Hall, and Harry in the Brickyard and Blacksmith. We have also
been busy planning our appearance at the Illinois State Fair. The president put
us in charge so we are booking a large bus to transport the band and Young
Performing Missionaries, booking tickets for
the Lincoln Museum for all of them, and coordinating the meals. We will be
there 3 times that first week, and bringing Nauvoo on the Road- a portable
trailer of games and activities from here. This past Tuesday, we had the
privilege of hosting a VIP tour with 4 people from the fair, who are in charge
of Looking For Lincoln heritage area, where we will be at the fair. Most had
not been to Nauvoo before, and they stayed all day, seeing The Promise, (a
pioneer musical by the young performing missionaries) a wagon ride, visiting a few sites like
the Family Living Center, and Pioneer Pastimes, eating dinner at the Nauvoo
Hotel buffet, seeing the Sunset by the Mississippi show, and ending with the
pageant. They loved it all, and were so impressed! We wanted to show them what
to expect, and it succeeded their expectations.
Harry has
also been writing the new program for the Nauvoo Brass Band at Carthage each
Sunday. The past two weeks they performed it while he narrated it, and the band
played the hymns he chose. It is very good, and spiritual. At night we are
either in the Sunset shows, the Rendezvous musical, or helping at the pageant.
Even though we are working a lot, we love it and love serving here on our
mission. It is hard to squeeze in cooking and eating. We have a lot of sandwiches,
yogurts, protein bars.
The Fourth of July was a lot of fun here. They had a flag raising ceremony at 7 am with the Nauvoo Brass Band, then we all served in our sites, had a barbecue at our home for the 19 young sister missionaries, and Harry( on standup bass) and Elder Broadhead (banjo and guitar) entertained them with jokes and songs. It was a fun fun evening. The fireworks were the next night, on Saturday here in Nauvoo, and were amazing!! They must have lasted over a half hour.
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| Happy 4th of July!!!Thank you amber for the decorations! We are having 6 couple missionaries and 19 young sister missionaries for a BBQ tonight!! |
This past week we had visitors for 3 days, who
actually stayed with us in our home; David and Jenny Lamb (Ruth’s sister) and
their 2 children came here- we had a lot of fun taking them around, getting
them tickets to all our shows, and visiting.
We even made tacos, and watermelon for them one night on our preparation
day. We love having any visitors.
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| Look who came to visit us in Nauvoo. The Lamb/Wittens. |
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| Jennie Lamb's family |
I also had my first cousin, Kandy Startup
Hillam here last week with her husband. It was fun to see them at all of our
shows. Doug’s sister, Bonnie Hoen, is in our cast. We had dinner at her home
with them last week.
And Shannah and Reed Godfrey, my niece, daughter of my
sister Marsha came here for one day. They brought their daughter and son to
EFY, and found us at our sites. They live in Independence, Missouri, and drove
home, then returned at the end of the week to pick them up.
I don’t want to end without bearing my testimony
that I know this work we are doing here is helping to “hasten the work of the
Lord”. This is His church, His restored gospel and I am so thankful to be
involved as a missionary, especially here in this sacred place, where prophets
lived and walked, and left for missions. Please Please never doubt it! There is
a feeling of urgency by the leaders for the gospel to keep moving forward,
because the second coming of the Lord is getting very close. Keep the
commandments, teach your children to live it and love it!
We love you all so much, and look forward to seeing
you here as soon as you can come! Please plan for it- we will help you make it
a wonderful memorable experience!
Love Elder and Sister Schultz
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