September 22, 2015-Anniversary, rodeo, general authority speakers, testimony

Dear Family and Friends,

            Hello from Historic Nauvoo! We have been having a fantastic mission here, serving the Lord, and sharing the gospel with all of the visitors who come here. They come to learn about the history of these valiant people, and to feel the spirit that is here in abundance! I apologize in advance that this letter will be a little long because I have much to share.

            I would like to first tell you about the news and activities we have been experiencing, and then to share some really special and spiritual things too. On September 10th, which would have been our release date, we celebrated our 45^th anniversary and my birthday. We went over to Fort Madison and had fun at the annual rodeo with our cast. Then we went to eat at a new little downtown restaurant, and stayed in a bed & breakfast called the Kingsley Inn; an old charming Victorian style hotel. Of course we had to get special permission from our mission president.

Throughout the past two weeks we have been saying goodbye to all of our fellow missionaries who came out here from the MTC together, and the others who have been here for 18 months. It has been difficult because we have all grown very close and love them like family. Most live far away from us in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and even Canada, and it is most likely we won’t see them again. But we have made many memories that will last a lifetime. The hardest ones we said goodbye to were the six young sister missionaries who served here last year and went home. (The newer 14 sisters will go outbound to other U.S. places in October). We have grown extra close to them because they served in the Visitor's Center with us for two summers. Elder Schultz put on a late Sunday night snack of tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and Italian sodas for all of them as a goodbye party. He also made his special “Altoid” boxes for each sister. (If you don’t know what those are, they are 2 metal boxes glued together at the bottoms; one side is filled with pain relievers, and the other side with emergency items like bandaids, floss sticks, antacid, laxative, etc.) They are amazing young women who are dedicated and have served the Lord valiantly for 18 months. We almost feel like they have been like “granddaughters” to us, and will miss them very much.

These are 45 of our fellow missionaries who are leaving this month. So hard to say goodbye to our good friends we have served together for 18 months!

We have two new missionaries who have joined us this past week; our good friends and former Young Ambassadors, Bob and LeeAndra Lowe. We are so excited to serve with them the last 3 months of our mission. They will be here until Feb. 2017. They live only 2 blocks from us and we hope we can spend some choice time together before we leave. They bring many talents to this mission, so I am excited for them to be here.

Last night we had a special experience. The two wonderful women who are sisters and live in Fort Madison; Carol Foss and Pat Kious and who we met this year at the annual Chamber dinner, invited us to Carol’s home for dinner. You might remember I told you about them in an earlier letter, and that Carol won "Volunteer of the Year" for all her work in the community. They are 80 and 85 years old, and are so active and have amazing energy! We have met with them a couple of times for lunch, and Carol called and invited us. They also had 3 friends come, and we ate on her back deck overlooking the Mississippi River. It was a beautiful evening, as we ate, and heard many trains go past blowing their whistles. It was the most peaceful and wonderful visit with new good friends, and I hope we stay in touch with them. They are very active in their Catholic church, and had lots of questions for us about Mormons and temples. We made a “long lasting bond of friendship” that evening.

This past month we have had two great spiritual experiences that I would like to share. On September 13, we had a special Sunday evening fireside with Sister Elaine Dalton, former General Young Women’s President, and her husband Elder Dalton, a member of the Quorum of the Seventy. Even before she was President from 2008-2013, she served as a counselor and on the board for  9 years before. Many important decisions were made under their direction, i.e. updating the “Strength of Youth” booklet and adding the value of Virtue to their theme. They were also involved in the decision to lower the ages for men and women missionaries.

Elder Dalton spoke first and told of his 7 great, great grandfathers who lived here in Nauvoo in the 1840’s; and most of them had worked on the temple. One of those was Edwin Whiting, which is also my great ,great grandfather, so I really related to what he said. He mainly told of their great sacrifices and how much Nauvoo meant to him, and the spirit he felt every time he came here.  Not one of these grandparents ever faltered or strayed away from the gospel, and all went west with saints. He did talk about having a sure foundation in Christ, and said it is “better to prepare and prevent than repair and repent.” 

Then our 20 young sister missionaries sang a medley of “Sisters in Zion”, and “Army of Helaman.” They had all been young women during Sister Dalton’s time as President. When she stood to speak, she was very emotional, and choked up. She said that these beautiful sisters were great examples of the quality of Virtue; that they prepared themselves to be worthy, and answered the call of the prophet to serve. She had them all stand and recite the Young Women's Motto. The theme of her talk was that we must all be prepared to help and be part of this great “Hastening”! “The Lord Needs All Of Us!” She spoke of many other things too, but wow! The spirit was so strong in that meeting and I am so grateful to have been present.

Running into friends!

The other exciting event that is happening here is having George and Susan Black Durrant return to teach us. They have a home in Nauvoo, so they come here every year for a few months. They are giving lectures in the Visitor’s Center on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He introduces her by telling funny stories and giving a short gospel message. Then she has been talking about Joseph Smith’s history, the First Vision, and his family. Tonight she discussed his courtship with Emma, and her biography. She is a great specialist on Joseph and Emma Smith, and about the Nauvoo era. She relates interesting and unusual stories and information that she has found while doing research here. It has been a real spiritual “feast” to learn from them.

I think it is getting late and time to end this letter. I want you all to know how much we love serving on this mission in Nauvoo, and that we are going to be so sad to leave in 3 months. The time has raced by so quickly. But we have learned great gospel principles, and our testimonies have strengthened in leaps and bounds. We serve with the most wonderful missionaries here, who are great examples to us of unselfish service, and who love the Lord.

I want you all to know that I have a testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I also know that Joseph Smith is a great prophet called to usher in this last dispensation, and help restore all things as in Christ’s day. What a wonderful privilege to know that we belong to the true church of Jesus Christ. I am grateful for the sacrifices of my ancestors who were here in Nauvoo. They went west so that they could worship in peace, and their descendants like me could be taught the gospel.

Thank you everyone for your words of encouragement and support. We love you and look forward to seeing you soon. Please write us a short note of your family news.        

Love Elder and Sister Schultz

July 18, 2015-Independence Day and Elder Holland

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 4^th 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

            

January 21-No more pioneer clothes, technology and Meet the Mormons

Dear Friends and Family,

         How are all of you doing? I can’t believe it has been 3 weeks since I last wrote. They tell us that this is supposed to be the slow time here in Nauvoo, but we have never been so busy! We basically are planning for the rest of the year. We still have our regular district and zone training meetings, but we also have meetings with the president and the public affairs committee to plan future events i.e. VIP tours of city leaders around the area, such as mayors, chamber presidents, other churches, etc. Plus, we are helping plan an Easter concert too. Not on the scale of the Christmas one, but we have been contacting churches in the surrounding cities like Fort Madison, Burlington, Quincy, Keokuk, Carthage, Hamilton and Warsaw to come and participate with their choirs. So far, many have said maybe, but no confirmations. Since Easter is on general conference weekend, this will be held the week before on March 29. All these events are to bring more people into Nauvoo, so that we can share the gospel and testimonies with them.

         Another big push right now is getting people to come and watch the movie we just got into the visitor center, “Meet the Mormons”. It is exclusively being shown in all the visitor centers. Then it will go out on Netflix and possibly You Tube. We have been booking whole wards and branches around this area to come and watch it, especially their youth groups. We are encouraging them to bring their friends. If any of you have not seen this amazing film, you MUST!! Please go to your closest visitors' center. Take your friends, they will love it! It is not preachy or religious; it just focuses on 6 different people from parts of the world who are LDS, and how they live their lives. So professional and well done! I am always so proud to recommend it to people we meet in other neighboring cities.

         We have been rehearsing for some new musical numbers to be introduced to the Sunset by Mississippi directors, The Camps, who are coming out next week. Sister Brown, and I are singing them, with Elders Broadhead and Schultz accompanying us. One is called Alabama Jubilee, - a ragtime rhythm upbeat song for the women to sing. And for the men: All I Gotta Do Is Act Naturally , a Beatles song done in Buck Owens style. Wish us luck that they will want to do these ones instead of the old ones we did last year.

Here is a picture of my close friend Sister Clement and me. She made me this beautiful shawl to wear with pioneer dresses but I wear it with regular clothes too. She is in charge of our Humanitarian projects and so talented. She has made over 25 of these shawls for sisters here if they get her the yarn! In her spare time!  We have become like sisters! So much in common. Similar health problems and love the same things.

Also we are practicing for the Exodus Re-enactment celebration Feb. 6 & 7- We are singing songs, and Elder Schultz and I are reading some parts taken from the journals of the saints who had to leave here in 1846. Then we make the trek from the cultural hall down Main Street, to the end of Parley Street where they crossed the river. Elder Schultz will march in the Nauvoo Legion group, carrying a fake rifle, and I am proudly carrying the flag of England, where my Smith and Startup ancestors came from. They tell us that great numbers of descendants come from all over to march with us, and honor these people who left in February- the dead of winter! We are excited to be part of this event and wish you could all be here with us.

 There is such an amazing spirit of missionary work throughout the church and world! The Lord truly is “Hastening the Work” to prepare us for His second coming. We are being trained how to use the social media, post gospel subjects, follow up, share the gospel with all of our friends and families- all those we come in contact with. We will be held accountable for not approaching them. All of us! This may be their only contact with an LDS person. Please have courage and open your mouth, and invite people to come to an activity, or see a movie, or go on Mormon.org and view profiles- and make sure you have posted a profile, so you can ask them to see yours! We also see hastening through genealogy work. Every day there are new additions to Family Search.com- we are being trained weekly on how to submit names for temples. And remember, they need YOU  to go do the work in the temple. Make it a HUGE priority. Okay? You will receive so many blessings.We have been promised by prophets, that angels will literally watch over us and our children, if we go to the temple- we need this especially in these last perilous days, when Satan’s forces are all over!

I better close now. We are serving in the Visitors' Center today- six days a week now! We don’t get to wear pioneer clothes and go into the historic sites anymore. We are directors of this important starting point for all of our visitors. We are helping plan several youth conference groups itineraries- over 5,000 youth came last year from all over the United States; 150,000  approximately visitors here last year; 60,000 in July alone during the 2 pageants. We feel a great responsibility to help them all have a wonderful, spiritual, meaningful experience here.

We love serving the Lord here in Nauvoo, and look forward to each new day, and being able to touch people’s lives. Thank you for the letters and notes you have written to us. We love you all so much!

Love from Elder and Sister Schultz