As of this week I have been assigned to Facilities Management. This is the group that takes care of all the church properties in Nauvoo. This includes everything from mowing lawns and taking care of gardens to repairing and painting buildings, plumbing work, construction projects, automotive repair and maintenance, electrical work, and heating and air condition along with warehousing to support those functions. 
They have heavy equipment such as big front end loaders, dump trucks, back hoes, fork lifts, boom lifts, cherry pickers, pavement rollers, skidsters and a fleet of pick up trucks equipped with a myriad of different functioning beds and trailers. There are very nicely equipped shops for each area such as cabinet and wood working, welding, painting, automotive, electrical, etc. They also have several green houses. It is surprising how many people, trades and the amount of equipment that is required to support them in maintaining the old Nauvoo. Its like a totally self supporting community.I have been assigned to a construction crew which also does all the cement work. Right now we are doing a retaining wall, flat work and a concrete bench over 100 feet long which sits at the base of the retaining wall at the Nauvoo pageant site. This work must be completed before the performers arrive to start practicing for the pageant which runs during the month of July. Some of my tasks have included assembling and dissembling forms, hauling gravel in a dump truck, doing some excavating work using a skidster, setting rebar and helping with finishing concrete. It is surprising what one can learn and do here at our age.
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| Facilities Management Logo |
You can see from the photos that the apparel for facilities missionaries is different. We ware denim pants and light blue shirts and a baseball type hat. The shirts and hats have the Facilities Management Logo embroidered on them. FM gives us the hat. We have to buy the shirts and pants. There is a full-time FM employee who's wife does the embroidering for free.
I will still be serving as a site missionary with Ann on Sundays.
