Fellow Temple Missionaries, Changes to Returning Date, Farewell to Nauvoo

Fellow Temple Missionaries --- There were six of us temple missionary couples who arrived on the same date last year - April 12, 2019.  The four remaining couples met at the end of Parley street on Friday morning to talk about some of our experiences here and share our appreciation for each other.  We have grown to love and appreciate these great people and will miss our almost daily association with them.  Fortunately for us, some of them live close enough to us in Utah and so we will probably see them occasionally.




Changes to Returning Date --- This week has been almost daily changes and updates.  We indicated to our Temple President our willingness to stay here until the temple closes on April 3rd, serving in the temple with other ordinance workers with patrons who will be participating in living ordinances.  But as the week progressed two main changes were made:  only those in the temple district could participate in living ordinances in their our temple (this drastically reduced the number of people scheduled for this temple); all senior missionaries are to go home immediately.  

We found out on Thursday afternoon that we would be going home as soon as got everything ready.  Since that time we have been packing our items and cleaning the apartment.  We will be leaving tomorrow (Monday) and plan on arriving home in South Jordan on Wednesday afternoon.  All returning missionaries (including us) are asked to do a self-isolation in their homes for 14 days.  Because of this self-isolation we basically will resume our normal lives about the same date as if we would have served our mission a full 12 months (i.e., until April 8th).


Farewell to Nauvoo -- This has been such a great blessing for us to serve in this beautiful temple and to get to know and serve with such faithful members of the Church.  Nauvoo has been so meaningful to us for many years and serving here has only made that bond we have with this great place even stronger.  We will especially miss the wonderful people we have served with.  Serving a mission has given us many opportunities to grow in many ways.  Some may consider this time here as a sacrifice and in some ways it has been, especially in being away from family and friends.  But the blessings we have received by serving here have been plentiful and we are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for this great opportunity.