A Nauvoo Weekend

I’ve had a very good weekend. I worked Saturday, but it was a rather adventurous day to work. The rain kept coming and going, and when it came, it was often very intense. We don’t stop giving tours when it rains, so long as people keep showing up and requesting them. This means there were times when I pretty much had to yell in order for my tour groups to hear me. I also had a few instances when the weather made me nervous. Usually, it was just because the thunder sounded so incredibly loud, but one time when I was guiding a group outside of the Mansion House, I could hear air sirens going off in the distance. I’ve been told before that if there are sirens going off, I’m supposed to head down into a cellar because it could mean there is a tornado coming. My fears were dampened (no pun intended) a bit by the fact that other people were still out and walking about, plus the sirens stopped almost immediately after I came out of the Mansion House, plus they sounded far enough away that I wasn’t sure they applied to the immediate area. I was later led to believe that the sirens were warning of flash floods in the city of Montrose, directly across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo. No need to panic after all.

When I got home from work, the drainage ditch in front of the Sidney Rigdon house (in which I’m staying) had turned into a sizable river of its own. Melanie and I both laughed when, a short while later, a trio of young children went swimming by, on their stomachs, in the ditch. Eddie, Peter, and Creegan wanted to join the fun and hurriedly put on their swimsuits, then took to the “river.” They had a great time splashing around in it before heading into the house and taking a bath. Imagine my dismay when I saw my boss this morning at work and he happened to say, “Don’t let your kids play in the rainwater, by the way. I saw some kids swimming around in it the other day. But it wasn’t just rainwater that they were swimming in.” Apparently, there is reason to believe sewage also comes up into these ditches when it rains heavily. Egad. Boy, am I glad Melanie made the boys take a bath immediately afterward!

Today was my day off from work. It was a very good day, overall. At church, we had a pancake breakfast in lieu of Sunday school. The food was great. There was a variety of syrups for the pancakes, very tasty breads and pastries, some yummy, cheesy scrambled eggs, delicious sausage, very good hash browns, etc. I even had chocolate milk to drink. The worship service went okay, but I have to admit, I very much look forward to getting back to my regular congregation in Salt Lake City. The people here are extremely nice, but something doesn’t click with me when it comes to the worship services out here. I think I’ll probably write more about this in a future blog post, so stay tuned.

After church, Melanie and I took the boys out to Keokuk to see the movie Minions. It was a really fun outing, although the movie itself was in my (and Melanie’s) opinion mediocre. We had originally considered going out to lunch after the movie, but we weren’t very hungry and it was so damn hot outside that simply walking to our car zapped us of any desire to be anywhere other than home. Since we were in Keokuk, however, we did stop at Family Video and pick up a few movies for the week. When we came back home, Melanie and I watched While We’re Young, which may be the first genuinely good movie we’ve watched during our time in Nauvoo. (I’ve seen quite a few in the last couple of weeks.) At that point, I felt desirous to go out to eat after all. And so, we loaded up and headed back to Keokuk. We ate dinner at Dr. Getwell’s. It was a good meal. We had a fried cheddar bites appetizer, then everyone sans Beegy got a burger. (Beegy got mac n’ cheese.) My burger was topped with ham, American cheese, and a fried egg. Melanie’s was topped with bacon, peanut butter, and jalapenos. Not our usual fare by any means, but we enjoyed ourselves.

And that’s that. It doesn’t sound like much now that I write it all down, but we’ve been having fun. Tomorrow is also a day off for me, and I’m thinking I may venture out to see more of the LDS sites here in Nauvoo. Wednesday will be yet another day off, and Melanie and I are trying to decide whether to head to Springfield or Lamoni, IA. We hope to see both places before heading home to Utah in a few weeks, and both are no more than a few hours away. Lamoni is home to Graceland University, which is to Community of Christ what Brigham Young University is to the LDS Church. Lamoni was also the headquarters of the RLDS Church for approximately 40 years. I’m not sure what all there is to do there, but I figure I should check it out while I’m so close. We’ll see what happens.