Well, we are ready to go. Practices and dress rehearsals for the additional shows are now over. Starting tomorrow all of the summer shows as well as the summer addition of Rendezvous will begin. All missionaries are on board. We have 250 missionaries now. That includes the 20 young sister missionaries (half are returning and half are new) and about 50 young performing Elders and Sisters who are here for the summer season. It does not include those who will still be coming to put on the Nauvoo Pageant during July. Also not included are the temple missionaries who are not part of our mission.
Our days are long and busy. The mission president said that this mission is the hardest working mission in the church for senior missionaries. I get up at 5:00 a.m. for personal study and exercise before being to work a 7:00 a.m. where I've been working on construction crew which has been doing mostly concrete work. So far, I've been working until 3:30 p.m. By the time I get home, clean up and have dinner, it time to hurry off for one of the performance. They begin at 7:00 p.m. and we have to be there ready to go by 6:30.
Ann puts in a six hour sift at one of the sites each day. Sometimes those go until 6:00 p.m. That doesn't give her much time to eat and be to our show assignment.
The nights we do Rendezvous we get done about 8:30 unless we have to do two performances then its 9:45. The nights we do Sunset by the Mississippi we are done about 8:30. Following the shows its home and get ready for bed so we can start over the next day.
My cousin Randy Peterson and his wife Judy called and stopped yesterday for about 15 minutes as we were getting ready to leave for our Sunset Show. Randy is the Stake President in Naperville which is just outside of Chicago. They were on their way to Quincy for some BYU reunion. It was good to see them. Judy brought me so information she had put together on Grandma Wendrich. They will be back on Father's Day weekend and hopefully we will be able to spend a little more time with them.
June is going to be a busy month in terms of visits. Our daughters Lori and Carrie and their families will be coming for a few days as part of a church history tour they are doing together. Another cousin Jill Springer called and said that she and her husband Reg would be here about the same time. They are coming for their wedding anniversary. It is also a day or two after Randy and Judy are coming with their daughter who lives in California.
