Ann Volunteering at Facilities Management

Cleaning Women's Garden Statues

Ann spent today as a volunteer with Facilities Management. She was assigned to the conservation group. Some of their tasks included washing and polishing the statues in Women's Garden next to the visitor's center. The statues represent different phases of a woman's life from a young girl to grandmother.

Another assignment was to paint the supports for the pickets for the new picket fence to replace the old fence around the Heber C. Kimball home. 

Getting Cobwebs & Cleaning Restrooms

Ann painting supports for picket fensing.

A third assignment with the conservation group was to clean the newly remodeled public restroom next to the Browning gun shop.

Tulips in Women's Garden

Facilities Management (FM) has been busy replacing fencing all around old Nauvoo that has been deteriorating. There are lots of projects going trying to get ready for the many tourists who will soon be coming during the summer months.

The FM assignments have made for a nice change from the various site assignments.

Spring Wildlife

Robin eggs in nest

Robin nesting on downstairs porch

 Spring has produced new life in Nauvoo as evidenced by nature and what we see all around Old Nauvoo. Our neighbor down stairs went out one morning to find a robin had made a nest in the basket on her bicycle. She removed it and set it on the porch railing and the robin continued to use the nest.

There are Canadian Geese everywhere along the Mississippi River and here in Nauvoo. With 275 acres of lawn to mow, there is  plenty of space for geese to feed.

Now that Spring has arrived you can see geese everywhere with their little goslings on the lawns feeding in the evenings.










One can see little cotton tail rabbits all over as well as squirrels, raccoons, possums and deer. Since raccoons and possums are nocturnal carnivores, you only see them at night.

Ann Signs Up As Facilities Management Volunteer

At our Early Wednesday mission training meeting this week, they asked for site missionaries who were interested in volunteering  to help Facilities Management to sign up. Ann signed up as a volunteer.

Right now they have extra site missionaries until the summer rush starts and FM needs some extra temporary help to get things ready. So they are assigning site missionaries a couple of days each week to work in FM.

Ann thought that would be good to have both of us on the same schedule on the days she was assigned to FM. A site missionary could have shifts from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. or 12 noon to 6:00 p.m. or even a six hour split shift in between those times. Facilities starts at 7:00 a.m. and goes until at least !:00 p.m. or until 3:30 p.m. if you want to work a full shift, which I usually do.

Ann had one day last week with FM and is scheduled for two days this week. This may give us an opportunity to attend the temple twice this week instead of once in between working and evening shows and practices.

Spring Flowers

PeonieTulips

Spring has finally arrived in Nauvoo.  The tulips, daffodils and blossoms are finally out. Trees are starting to leaf out and the grass is green. Here are some of the flowers and blossoms seen here now. 

All of the flowers are different varieties of tulips.

PeonieTulips

PeonieTulips

Tulips

PeonieTulip

Flowering Cherry and Apple Trees

Large flowering shrub

Flowering Cherry Tree

Monthly Mission Breakfast

Missionaries in line for breakfast. Ann in lower right hand corner

This morning we held our second mission breakfast. Each month on the first Friday, the mission holds a breakfast for the whole mission and invites the full time employees of Facilities Management.

Everyone in the mission is assigned to one of the performing casts. During the late Fall and Winter there are two casts. Then during late Spring and Summer there are more missionaries so they divide up the missionaries into three casts. Each cast performs two nights of the "Rendezvous" show and one night of the ""Sunset by the Mississippi" show each week.

Missionaries eating monthly Friday morning breakfast

Anyway, the missionaries in each cast sigh up to bring items for their cast for the breakfast. So, there is one line of tables filled with breakfast items for each of the casts. The food items are to be there by 6:45 a.m. and the breakfast begins at 7:00 a.m. It is like a big ward dinner. The cultural hall is filled.

Besides being a social gathering, the purpose is to recognize the missionaries who will be going home that month. The missionaries who are leaving get together and come up with a skit. They have been quite cleaver and humorous.

Fred's Assigned to Facilities Management

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.

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.

Nauvoo Spring Sunsets

Sunsets on the Mississippi are spectacular. Here are a few photos taken last evening after we completed our site assignments. These were taken at the end of Parley Street where the pioneers crossed the Mississippi that cold
February in 1846