Dear
Family and Friends,
I am so sorry for not writing
sooner. Time is flying by so fast, I guess because we are so busy with the
summer visitors and the pageants. I think about you all the time, and of things
I want to share with you, but just can’t find the time to sit down and write
it.
First of all, Wow! I forgot how
crowded it got once the pageants started! We are experiencing crowds of people
in the Visitor's Center, and averaging about 1,800-2,000 per day! The past two
weekends were the busiest because we have had over 15 Stake Youth Conferences
come here; including Houston & Dallas, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Missouri,
Tennessee, South Carolina, and even Cypress, California. It has been exciting
to see hundreds of valiant youth of the church come here to experience this
wonderful city and the people who lived here long ago. We were told that they
studied church history this year in seminary, so it is really coming alive for
them. The church really is growing at such a fast pace and these are our future
missionaries!
On July 3, we had a fun Independence Day celebration at our house with 20 young sister missionaries. We had done this last year for them all
because they had nowhere to go. So we invited them again. We had a barbecue of
hot dogs and hamburgers, chips, watermelon, and potato salad. Then Sister Knapp
next door made a big tray of brownies! Elder Broadhead came and performed again
with Elder Schultz for our entertainment. Then, since we had bought them all
sparklers, we lit them and had the 4th of July celebration! (a day
early). Fireworks were done that night in Montrose across the river, so we went
and watched them all on Temple Hill. It was really fun evening. All the sisters
dressed in patriotic colors.
Both the Nauvoo Pageant and the
British Pageant are in full swing. They opened on July 7th, and it’s been rough
because we are having so much rain! Every day we have to look at the forecast
to whether to plan on having the Sunset Show on the outside stage, or in the Visitor's Center Theater. And the pageants have been rained out at least 3 times. They start to
present them, and then it starts pouring and they have to cancel it. The casts
have all worked so hard, that I really feel badly for them. But we have been
able to watch each one of them twice, and I am still overcome with emotions
afterwards. They have such a beautiful message of these great people and their
sacrifices. And the British one is the story of many of our ancestors on the
Startup and Brown lines.
It is still such a joy to be here in
Nauvoo and to be serving on this mission. I thought it would grow old, but it
never does. All of our zone and district meetings, and weekly training meetings
are so filled with the Spirit. Our President and his counselors are very
inspired, and I have a testimony that these men are called of God. I learn from
them constantly. We had a very special visitor to the mission last Tuesday
night. They had told us that a general authority was coming, but it was a
surprise. He wanted to speak just to the missionaries here. All of the sites
closed early, and shows were early so that we could all be in attendance in the
chapel.
We were so excited when Elder
Jeffrey R. Holland walked through the doors with our President, after we were
already seated. He and his whole family were in Nauvoo for a family reunion
with his children, and grandchildren. He spoke to us for about an hour on a
very personal level, without any prepared talk. I tried to take notes of some
of his thoughts, but couldn’t write fast enough. I wanted to share some of them
with you all. These are some of the things he said:
1. Thank you for serving and doing
what you do so that entire families like us can enjoy this experience, and have
a“deeply personal rewarding experience”.
2. He quoted President Spencer W. Kimball
that “every historical moment in the church is 'sacred,'” and that he encouraged
all the brethren to "go to two places in their lives: The Holy Lands, and
Nauvoo.”
3. Nauvoo is the great symbol of the
whole purpose of what the church was organized to do; create a Zion people-
even though it only lasted for a short while. They struggled every place
before; New York, Ohio, and Missouri.
4. But, for a brief bright shining
moment it was “A New Jerusalem”- a consecrated people with a prophet and
apostles; a city of God, a city of Zion. You missionaries are keeping that
memory alive!!
5. No other time in history than
these latter days has the gospel ever worked before and lasted! Every
dispensation before now ended in apostasy.
Every prophet looked forward to THIS day! We are here NOW in that great
LAST Dispensation. We are never going to fail! The priesthood will always be on
the earth.
6. President Holland says he dreams
of one day having a worldwide "Gigantic Nauvoo.” Someday we will have that. He
said he prays every night for the Second Coming to hurry because he is “weary
of the world’s problems.” He prays that the Savior will come and "heal the world." He looks at it all through the eyes of a father, and grandfather, not
just as an apostle.
7. "You missionaries are keeping the
dream of Zion alive- symbolically, until the Savior comes again!"
8. He then had an open question and
answer time which was so informative. Questions varied from social media, to
recognizing the spirit when teaching, who is the Holy Ghost, and how we can
affect and help our wayward children and grandchildren. But I want to share
with you his answer about the wayward children. He raised his voice almost yelling and said strongly, “The best way to
help them is to BEAR YOUR TESTIMONY!! Often, and with the firmness of your
soul, eye to eye, heart to heart. Don’t EVER underestimate the power of your
personal testimony! Bear it with power and authority! And with unfailing,
uncompromising LOVE.
Then he bore His testimony to all of
us. And it was powerful! There is no way I could deny that an apostle of the
Lord, a very witness of Him, was speaking to us. I felt the spirit so strongly
that evening, and I will be forever grateful for this amazing privilege of
hearing him speak.
In closing, he gave us counsel to
interview ourselves and where we stand in our personal relationship with the
Lord. He said to ask yourself these 3 questions; 1. What is the condition of
your soul? 2. What is the nature of your heart? 3. What is the strength of your
faith? He didn’t elaborate too much on these, but wants us to ponder them, and “Pray
better and deeper, and with more feeling of accountability before the Lord.”His
last words were; “This is the Truth of Almighty God, and IT WILL NEVER FAIL!!
I pray that you will all learn from
these wonderful messages from one of our apostles. It was life changing for me.
We love you all, and are grateful for your loving support and encouragement.
Love
Elder Harry and Sister Nancy Schultz
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