Back to School

Both kids started at new schools this week.  Ruth started at the high school. She is most excited about debate and ballroom dance.  She worked hard over the summer on homework for her AP and honors class, including reading The Count of Monte Cristo.   Jared has liked his first week at the middle school. He says that his favorite class so far is science.  He is also doing band. It's helped in his transition that he has several friends in most of his classes.

 

First Week of Quiet

This week was a change for me as well.  Ruth and Jared started school, Chuck is working for the first time in six months, Kaitlin is gone, and I do not have a job.   The idea that the school year had started and I had not found a job did not sink in until this week.  I met with some friends and I worked some projects to keep me distracted from this distressing new status in my life.  I really have no idea what I want to do with myself.  

Two Buck Tuesday

2 stories up in the jungle climb

There is a new children's science museum just 25 minutes from our house, but because it is expensive and all my children are out of the targeted age, we've never gone.  Enter Two Buck Tuesday, a day you can get entry for two dollars.  Ruth, Jared, and I braved the crowds of other deal seekers and ventured. It turned out to be a really great museum and there were some areas that we aimed at the older crowd that we really enjoyed. Worth two buck for sure.

"Prison of Angels"

Learning about forced perspective

This is how Kaitlin described her first week learning about how to be a missionary in the Argentina Missionary Training Center, or CCM as I will henceforth be referring to it as.  We were super excited to get our first full email from Kaitlin on Thursday.  If you are interested in reading her emails, I am posting them on her blog.  You can email me for her blog address.

And She's Off

The night before Kaitlin left for Paraguay we sat in the livingroom together and, having done the last inventory, we zipped up the suitcases that had taken residence in the livingroom for the past week.   The only way I can describe the feeling was that it felt a lot like Christmas Eve to me. You may have to be a mother of many children to appreciate this, but there is a feeling, late in the night's depths of Christmas Eve, when the last package is placed under the tree, and last detail attended to, that is part satisfaction part melancholy.  Putting on a month of Christmas for a house full of children is a great work, and getting a missionary ready to spend 18 months in a third world country is a lot like that - times five. 

The process of buying items and packing bags is a tricky one.  There is the list that the church gives you, and a list that her mission gave her, and then many other lists from other missionaries and missionary mothers.  But in spite of all the lists, the reality is that we had no idea what Kaitlin, personally, would need. We didn't know what was available there, we didn't know if she would be in the city or country,  we didn't know so many things.  So in all this not knowing, we just hoped for the best, trying to strike a balance between being prepared and not overburdening her with stuff.   Finally there was the trick of packing all this preparedness into two suitcases that weighed under 50lbs each.

We were lucky that Kaitlin flew out in the afternoon.  That gave us all a chance to sleep in and have a few hours of quiet to do last minute things.  We ended up with free time before we had to leave and so, at Kaitlin's request, we did some Nauvoo dances around the house to pass the time and work out our nerves.

The airport was full of missionaries coming and going. We must have seen eight different missionaries come home in the time we were there.  It was hard to say goodbye to Kaitlin, but mixed in there with the sadness, I really felt proud of her, and I felt satisfied that we had done a really good job raising and preparing her for this.

When we came home from the airport, we discovered this internet site where you can watch little graphics of airplanes fly across the world (kind of like the Santa tracker websites, but without the gifts in the morning).  When I finally fell asleep, Kaitlin's little airplane was over Jamaica and I was happy to see in the morning that her little plane was sitting safely in Buenas Aires.   We got a short email later that morning from Kaitlin saying that she had a great flight and was safely at the MTC.   We hope to get a long email from her on Thursday of this week.



Openhouse

Thank you to everyone who came to and helped with Kaitlin's open house on Sunday.  Kaitlin spoke in church and did a great job. We had a pleasent time visiting with so many of you.   Kaitlin was really happy about how the day had gone.

Getting Ready

Most of the past two weeks has been getting Kaitlin ready to go. We did a lot of shopping and packing, but there were also a few things on Kaitlin's bucket list that we needed to get done.  One of those things was to have a dress up day, and so we did. We dressed up and went out to lunch.  Jared refused to dress up but he did consent to taking our pictures.   Another of our last minute things was to get re-fingerprinted and work on getting all her paperwork done, as well as all of her financial things settled.


Chuck's New Job

Chuck has now been working at his new job for two weeks.  The company is brand new and they are just getting started with basic things, so Chuck has been writing reports about how to write reports and that sort of thing.   He has also been learning how to use the train, and what to do with his train time, and how to navigate downtown. So far, so good.

Recovering from Nauvoo

God truly carried us while we were serving in Nauvoo. He quickened our minds and gave us strength beyond our own.  But as soon as our time in Nauvoo was over we all crashed.  The kids slept as much as they could on the drive home, and now, five days later we are all still tired and many of us are still sick.  But no rest for the weary because we got things to do!

Getting Kaitlin Ready

Two important things happened the first day we were home.  Firstly, we got Kaitlin's travel plans. Kaitlin has flight reservations for Wed, August 12th. She'll be flying into Atlanta, and then direct to Argentina.  Secondly, we learned that Kaitlin's FBI paperwork, that we had been waiting on for three months, had been rejected.  After some panicked phone calls to the church we were put in contact with a company that can expedite Kaitlin's paperwork. So we rushed down and got Kaitlin fingerprinted again and within hours had the paperwork resubmitted.

We finished Kaitlin's cloths shopping before we left but left the finer details, those little things that pull outfits together, until now.  Kaitlin put a cry for help out on our Relief Society's facebook page, and our neighbor, Kathy Romero, came over and shared her fashion genius with Kaitlin. She even took Kaitlin to her house and came back with armloads of cloths and scarves, which she expertly matched with Kaitlin's things, creating a myriad of very cute outfits.  She was super generous with her possessions and time and left Kaitlin joyful and grateful. 

Kaitlin and I also worked on planning out her farewell party on Sunday, and we also went out to take mission pictures, which all turned out very cute.

Getting Chuck Ready for Work

Chuck starts at his new job on Monday. He's been reading up on the company and getting ready for his first day.   In addition to the new downtown commute, Chuck's new company has a higher dress standard than his last job.  So this week we went shopping to get some business casual attire. He is excited and nervous to start this new adventure.

Nauvoo in Pictures 

I've posted lots of pictures already on Facebook, but, happy day, these are all different ones!

Practicing

Here is our director Alex (in blue), she is from Jersey (the country), and in red is our music director Cristy, from New York.  We learned all of our dances inside on a flat floor and it was quite a challenge transferring them to the 3dimensional stage.

Ruth (who's back is facing us) was a curtain mover in the British Pageant. That meant that throughout the pageant she opened and closed different panels of curtains to set the different locations.  Amazingly, she was able to memorize the different positions very quickly and was often helping the other curtain movers.

Kaitlin was assigned to be a flag waver in the Preston Town dance. At a certain part of the dance she had to run down from the back of the stage, down several flights of stairs, over some ramps and around to the front, all in a long pioneer dress. It was frightening for her, but she did great and didn't falter.

In the heat of the afternoon we often were able to practice in this new warehouse that the Church bought for the pageant to use.

We practiced in rain and sun.

In the British Pageant our district was assigned to reenact saints in three different areas of the UK being converted.  Here we are in the Boxhill Chapel, we also appeared in the United Brethren, and Downham and Chatburn. All saying, I asked for baptism a good 15 times during the pageants but didn't get baptized once.

We were assigned to a district with another family, the Shultz's from AZ, and Garrett, one of the core cast members. We would meet together nearly every day to talk about what we were thinking about and to support and help each other.

 

Our directors were always very patient and positive with us.  It made us want to do our very best to please them.

The Pageants 

We carry trunks, like the ones behind Chuck, on and off the stage several times during the pageants.  We also noticed several pioneer trunks displayed in homes in Nauvoo. It got me to thinking what these family trunks must have meant to the pioneers.  They left their homelands and homes and packed everything they owned in trunks. Trunks were a piece of home that they carried with them.

We are almost always in families while on the stage. It is very deliberate because we want to tell the stories of families and the journeys that families took together.  In this picture our family is sitting on the deck of a ship headed for America. (Kaitlin is getting up to go visit another family on the ship)

We are singing "The Gallant Ship", a song actually sung by the first pioneers and found in Emma's hymnbook. A few days ago my sister posted a link on facebook to a letter my 2nd great grandmother wrote, and in that letter she quotes from the song "The Gallant Ship."  It was very cool to read those words in her own hand that I had just sung a few days ago on stage.

The first three-fourths of the British Pageant shows all the different communities being converted to Mormonism by the missionaries. The last fourth of the pageant is us on the ship headed for Nauvoo.  To see those huge sails and mast come up every evening was an amazing site.

In the Nauvoo Pageant we represented saints arriving off the boats for the first time in Nauvoo.  We were assigned to walk all the way from the back through the audience.  The pathways were sometimes very muddy but we squelched with confidence.

You can see our family in the very bottle left corner, first arriving on stage in the Nauvoo Pageant.

I shared on facebook how Ruth really wanted to be a street thrower, but wasn't chosen at first for that job. It was a tender mercy when someone had to drop out and they asked Ruth to take her place. Here is a picture of Ruth throwing Partridge street into the air as we created a map of the city of Nauvoo on the stage.

Throughout the pageant the men slowly erect this wooden scaffolding, and then in one of the final scenes we hoist a canvas covering over the scaffolding to create this huge temple. When the saints leave nauvoo, the temple is lowered and the stage is left empty.

At the very end of the pageant we all come back to the stage dressed in light clothing, representing the spirits of those pioneers.  Because our group was assigned to walk through the audience when we left Nauvoo, we are standing out in a dark field behind the chairs changing cloths. The other cast that is in Nauvoo, who are training to take our place, also join us on stage so there are hundreds of us.  The real temple is lighted behind us and we sing "The Spirit of God". It is an amazing thing to be part of.

Nauvoo in Words

Parallel Journeys 

On our last night in Nauvoo, Kaitlin and I were walking to the car and she told me how our journey to Nauvoo parallels on a small scale what the saints went through.

The Call to Zion:

From the very beginning of the church, Saints all over the world headed the call to gather with the saints. Some of my ancestors converted in New England, others left their homeland in England to cross the sea to America. All of them left family, homes, occupations, and possessions to go to Zion. They didn’t really know what to expect, they just went on faith because they felt it was the right thing to do.

Even though we had not planned to go to Nauvoo this summer, we felt the call to go. So we saved money, set aside time, and left the comfort of our home, friends and technology to go to Nauvoo. Even though we were getting Kaitlin ready for a mission and our employment was uncertain and future unsure, we went forward with faith.

Becoming One People:

In Nauvoo and other settlements, saints welcomed each other with open arms and hearts. Strangers were brought into homes, limited resources were shared, and class systems were set aside. Although from different nations and places, they had one faith that bound them together.

Walking in to the first day of rehearsals is unlike any other experience I have ever had. Many of the staff already know your name; they shake your hand, look in your eyes and say how glad they are that you are there, and they mean it. You meet others and they are already friends that you just haven’t met yet. As you look at the families, you know they all have different stories, a fireman from Arizona, an engineer from Utah, a mother from Iowa, a student from Nottingham, different, but the same as yours; they all felt the call to come and be in Nauvoo and sacrificed to be there.

Uniting in Trials:

Sickness swept through Nauvoo, taking the lives of many and taking a toll on all. Together they fought the mud, the bugs, and the heat to build a city. Each saint had their place, building bricks, making cloth, herding animals, caring for children, among others. They worked together on the Temple, giving one day in ten to build that huge limestone building where they knew their family could make covenants and be sealed together forever. Their hardship, their loss, their sacrifice, only brought them closer together as a people. United, they built the largest and most prosperous city in Illinois in just a few short years.

In Nauvoo we all got a sickness that we jokingly called the ague, a nasty head cold and cough that swept through the entire cast. We spent 16 hour days rehearsing in mud that covered the tops of our shoes and rain, or hot humid sun. Everyone was given a job to dance, or wave a flag, or move a prop, which everyone did with enthusiasm and without complaint. Even though we were all suffering and sleep deprived, you never heard a cross word, or negative comment, only praises from our director and the staff and encouragement from one another. We knew that to earn the right to represent these pioneers we had to experience a small measure of what they experienced. We literally built a temple on the stage in the pageant, but we also built friendships together as we worked as one. In eight days we learned two pageants containing five dances, over 20 songs and 3 hours of stage time.

Leaving the Place we Love:

In 1846 the saints were forced from their beautiful city by mobs. They swept their floors, loaded the wagons and turned their faces from their newly finished temple to head west. Their hearts ached as they walked though the freezing snow down Parley Street. Not only were they leaving their homes, but also the society and friendships they had made.

In the final minutes of the Nauvoo Pageant we reenact the saints leaving Nauvoo. We have build a 40 foot tall temple on the back of the stage, and then we leave it, huddling together with shawls and trunks, and walking down the stage, off stage ramps, and through the audience (and the mud) into the darkness. This part of the pageant is always super emotional, but on our last night, it is even more so. In a meta way, we really are leaving the place and the people we love. We are leaving behind the Zion society we have created in this place, doing this pageant, and will soon be going back to the harsh, real world.

 Going on Our Way Rejoicing:

In the Nauvoo Pageant, my 2nd great aunt Eliza Snow says that the saints “felt to rejoice” as they started west. They had built the temple. They had made covenants with God and had their families sealed together. They were going together to find somewhere where they could be free of fear.

It’s with mixed feelings that we left Nauvoo. We were happy to be leaving the humidity, bugs, and exhaustion, excited to be sleeping in our own beds. But, we had had a wonderful time and had made new friends that we would probably never see again. We had had amazing spiritual experiences and had learned so many new things, many of which were personalized for each one of us. We were leaving our mini-Zion behind, but we were taking those feelings of Zion with us in our hearts, with renewed determination to be better people and to strengthen Zion where we live.

Nauvoo

We have now been a week in Nauvoo and are half way finished with our Nauvoo experience.  The 16 hour days have been grueling but joyful. The weather has been very wet and very hot. We have battled heat, humidity, mud and insects, and yet, to us, this is the most beautiful place on earth.  We have met a lot of new families and have felt an instant love for them as we have served and sweated together.   There is a real zion feeling here where we all work hard at encouraging and supporting one another. Hearing a negative comment or criticism is rare.

As we have been learning to tell the story of these early saints, we have received great blessings and support. We have felt well for the most part, and more importantly, our minds have been made sharp and clear so that we are remembering in the very moment what the next dance move is, or where we need to be on the stage, or what we need to do. There is a great pouring out of God's blessings all around us.

Our hearts and thoughts have turned to these people who gave so much to live the way they believed.  We've learned a lot about our English ancestors that we didn't know before, and we are reminded again of those pioneers that loved the gospel, and this place, so much.

We have each been learning our own personal lessons and going on our own journeys here.  I've been posting a lot of what I've been thinking about on facebook and have been posting lots of pictures there, so I don't feel to go into a great amount of detail here, just know that we are exhausted and loving every minute of it!