Work, Visitors and Fun!

My resolution to get caught up with the blog and then keep it up by posting every week dissolved in the swirl of life.  I am sometimes overwhelmed but do not want to give up this journaling option.

As you can see by the photos, we had a major chair exchange going on.  We bring new chairs and set them up.  Then remove old chairs--some go to other chapels and some are donated to charities--usually the Salvation Army.  We are told that the church is working to remove all plastic stacking chairs and replace them with folding chairs.  That's our story and we are sticking to it.

After one of those big moves, we gathered with our group at the nearby Liberty Jail for a late lunch  meeting.  There were four bus loads of visitors so we pulled chairs into the storage room.  It was nice to have air conditioning and sit in chairs instead of in our trucks.

The next day, Steve and I worked with marked on further clean-up at the former Gov. Bogg's lot and then went over to the mission office to remove a dead tree.  Removing trees is a lot of work even with the help of "Bob", the Bobcat skid steer.

I try to wear a hat when the sun is scorching hot, but I can hardly stand them.  It is an on and off thing with me.  

One day, I noticed our hats, bags and work gloves all spread out on a table in the office--so typical for us.

Until our garage doors are replaced, it is challenging to open and close the damaged doors but we needed to get our trucks out so we figured out a way.

On Friday, June 8, our friends, the Johnsons invited us to join them and Briggs at a Mexican restaurant.  It was a fun break after a long work week.

On the way home, we noticed 6 excavators parked on the bridge over the freeway.  Starting a midnight, the highway will be closed while they remove three bridges.  It is scheduled to open on Monday morning, but a lot of people will have to find alternate driving routes for several months while the bridges are replaced.

Saturday, we went with the Briggs to a little touristy town northwest of Kansas City named Weston.  They have a Polish pottery store and have built on the heritage of many of the early settlers to host a Polish Pottery Festival each summer.  It was fun to see all of the beautiful handprinted pottery items.

We especially enjoyed our Polish lunch which consisted or Polish sausage, pierogies, cabbage rolls, red cabbage and kolatches.  It was fun.

They had bands playing polish music at two different locations.  We got a kick out of this band playing at the old gas station.

Many of the buildings dated back to the 1800's and were refurbished to accommodate cute shops.  This one behind us was built in 1848.

They had an old fashioned soda fountain.  

The old jail was renovated into public restrooms which were unexpectedly nice and very clean.

This bridal party was being photographed in front of one old building so we couldn't resist.

On Monday, our branch missionaries, Elders Thompson and Rowley, went with us and helped us with our work on rounds.  It was their P-day and they got permission from the Mission President to go with us.  We showed them the historical sites and put them to work.  They loved reading scriptures inside the reconstructed Liberty Jail while we changed light bulbs, etc.

We put them to work, trimming, spraying, watering and picking up sticks, etc.  A scout troop came to Far West while we were working.  It was a good opportunity for them to witness the missionaries working and serving.  They also asked us to tell them some stories about Far West.  Your dad really loves to share the historical information.

I purchased this turquoise hat because it is very light weight and can be folded up.  It is better than most and I take it along and try to wear it, but it never lasts long for me.

Steve is wearing his Amish hat while he is watering.  It protects his ears and neck so I wish he would wear it more, but he prefers his cap.

It was shocking to pull up to Hauns Mill with our elders and find a huge mess.  There had been a big weekend party complete with alcohol, a fire pit, fireworks,  and more.  We were saddened by the vandalism and disrespect but surely appreciated having the elders there to help us clean it all up.

After all of our work at each site, we took the elders to an excellent BBQ place in Excelsior Springs called the Wabash.  They loved, loved it! We love our elders.  They are exceptionally fine young men.

Monday evening, we had our senior FHE and our stake president, President Cato, was our guest speaker.  He told about his personal conversion struggle after the RLDS church ordained women to the priesthood and changed to the Community of Christ in the 1980's.  He totally believed the Book of Mormon to be true but couldn't accept the direction the RLDS church had chosen.  It was a challenging time for many believers and a soul searching time for Pres. Cato and his family.  Once he  felt the witness of the Holy Spirit bearing record of the truthfulness of the LDS church, he pledged his life to doing all he could to further God's work on the earth and he continues to do this every day.  

Later that week, we did some group cleanup work at Far West, including removing tree branches at a parcel of the land we didn't even know the church owned.  It was part of the Whitmer farm in Far West.  John Whitmer, one of the 8 witnesses, continued to live in Far West as a former church member after the saints were removed from Far West.  He lived there the rest of his life and was buried in nearby Kingston.  Although he didn't continue to affiliate with the church, he never denied his testimony that the Book of Mormon was translated from gold plates by the power of God.

This land, owned by the church, is currently leased out to local farmers.  We maintain the trees.

When we drove down the road about a mile, I had to ride in the back of Mark's truck which has the seat lifted up and is full of tools.  Getting in and out was definitely a laughing matter.  

Another day, we took new chairs to another chapel.  Here is a photo showing four different kinds of chairs.  We brought the padded folding chairs and removed the plastic stacking chairs.

Steve unloaded every one of the new chairs from the trailer in the hot sun.  I have never seen anyone's knees sweat before.  When we loaded up the old chairs, everyone took a turn in the sun.  That was better.

Here we are unloading the chairs at the donation center in Kansas City.

Here the guys are loading the dump trailer with discarded, broken stuff that had been temporarily stored behind our shop.  We love getting rid of junk.

One day when we stopped in Hamilton for the quilting "deal of the day," Steve was intrigued that an Amish buggy was parked nearby so he asked me to pose for this picture.

Thursday night, we attended a session at the temple so we would be home on Friday night to greet Jeff, Liberty, Benson, Sadie and Xander who had driven for the past two days from South Carolina to visit us and see the church history sites.  The first thing Benson wanted to do was stand in our "now famous archway." We love taking pictures in the archway.

Saturday, we started fairly early so we could show them the back rooms of the Liberty Jail historic site before the missionaries came to start their public tours.  They will tour the jail later in their visit with the Case grandparents.  I posed with the grandkids in front of the flower gardens, we care for.

On our way to the Far West temple site, we stopped by the famous Slivinski's bakery for fabulous fritters.  Of course, some people chose other goodies, but we shared a fritter.  Liberty had total self-control and walked around the parking lot while we indulged.  

However, we all checked out a small local farmers' market at the end of the parking lot where Libbie bought some peaches and tomatoes.  I admire her resolve.

In the Far West area, we stopped at Eminence Hill where Joseph Smith was arrested before ending up in the Liberty Jail for over 4 months.

Here is our group in front of the Southeast cornerstone of the temple.  This is the place where the apostles left on their mission to the British Isles as prophesied by Joseph Smith.

We stopped for a few minutes at the Far West Bookstore about half a mile north of the temple site.  It is a popular spot for the church history tourists and we frequently check out the inventory.

Then it was on to Hauns Mill and Breckenridge where the millstone monument is located.

We were all geared up for lunch at Hank and Tank's BBQ in Hamilton, but when we got there, it was closed for the day.  We found out later, their air conditioning was broken and it was too hot inside and out for the patrons to eat.  The kids were starving so we stopped at Subway to grab something for them.  The adults decided to wait for the Oink and Moo in Richmond.

This is the Kingston courthouse where the county seat was moved after the Mormon settlers left Far West.  This is the only building of any consequence in the entire town.  It hasn't prospered.

When we drove through a little town called Polo, we noticed these huge kites flying high over a park. We pulled over to take a further look.  Besides  about 15 of the biggest kites we had ever seen, there were some horse riding events going on and a few craft and food booths.  We were smack dab in the middle of Polo Days.  It was a very unique experience.

Next we stopped at the Richmond Cemetery where we take care of the flowers and clean the grounds.  There is a monument to the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon here above Olivery Cowdery's grave.

We finally made it to the Oink and Moo BBQ.  Libbie ordered a batch of homemade chips.  They were really good, I must say.  The kids managed to be hungry all over again so we all ate this time.

That evening we relaxed back at our house and watched for the fireflies at dusk.

Liberty seemed happy with my latest sewing project which is a Liberty wall hanging.

Steve and Xander are buddies.  Sadie loved helping me dead head flowers and work a bit in the yard.

All the kids loved the homemade popcorn and ate 5 batches until I was tired of popping it.

Sunday, after church, we celebrated Father's Day with Jeff & Steve.  I made a special shrimp and vegetable alfredo plus corn, broccoli, salad and fruit.  It was pretty tasty.

After lunch Steve grabbed a nap and the rest of us explored a park not too far away that Libbie found where we could go for a short hike and explore old cabin sites, etc.  It was warm but mostly shady so it was bearable.

Sunday evening we watched the movie 17 miracles and ate more popcorn.  As we watched the rescuers come to assist the handcart companies caught in the terrible winter storms, I remembered that we had ancestors involved in that rescue.  My great grandfather, Robert P. Wilson, was one of the first three men to arrive in the first rescue party.  Steve's great great grandfather, Joseph Warren Wadsworth, was one of the last men in the 3rd rescue party to help the final group get through the last canyon.  What an amazing heritage our family has!!!

Monday morning, we took a day off from our work as the two other couples took over all the duties so we could spend time with Jeff and Libbie's family.

We started our day off with a visit to Bonner Springs, Kansas, to check out the infamous Moon Marble Company.  It is basically a big store with a huge assortment of games and toys, many old fashioned, timeless treasures not widely available.  They also have a huge selection of marbles for purchase and a museum display case of handmade artistic marbles.

Sadie was captivated by a marble mood ring.  It tells her when she is happy!  Yay!

Steve looked around and then took a second row seat in the bleachers in preparation for the marble making demonstration.

The marble marker that day was a younger guy who has been working hard to perfect the craft of marble making for at least 7-8 years.  It is a pretty complex art form and it was fascinating to watch him use his 2000 degree flame torch to create the marble.

I thought the restroom was pretty interesting too so true to form, I took this photo.

After Moon Marble, we drove into downtown Kansas City.  Our first stop was the Hallmark Visitor's Center for a movie about how the company was started and how the Hall family has continued to manage it.  They have a venue that allows children to make artistic creations called Kalidescope.  It was directly next door and the kids quite enjoyed making things and experimenting with the provided options.  After that, it was time for lunch.

We went into the Hallmark Crown Center, like a small mall, and ate at Fritz's restaurant.  The menu consisted of hamburgers, etc.  They gave Xander an engineer's hat which he loved.  You ordered on a phone and then the food was delivered by an electric train.

Here's the train dropping off our basket onto the lift to be lowered to the table.

The milkshakes were good.  The hamburgers were fair, but Xander was a very happy kid.

He he poses by a Lego man with his engineer hat on.

After lunch, we headed back to our place for a little unstructured time.  They played games, watched movies and ran around a bit.  We took interested people over to our shop and showed them around.  Then Xander and Sadie got a turn to ride the new zero-turn mower in the parking lot.

Tuesday morning, the Case family was heading for Nauvoo.  We arranged our schedule to meet the other missionaries for morning prayer and then take a trailer up to Adam-Ondi-Ahman to pick up a stump grinder.  This allowed us to caravan up there and give them a bit of a tour around this special place. 

Sadie and Xander decided to ride with us in the truck.  Yahoo!

Popcorn and granola bars were Xander's favorite snacks.

They got to see inside the amazing AOA shop.

Xander got to sit on their new tractor.

There was a bus tour group at the site so this photo was taken in front of preacher's rock since a group was sitting on it at the time.

As we pulled out of AOA, it started to rain and gave us a typical Missouri downpour.

We drove to Hamilton for lunch and some ate a Jay's Burgers while others had a salad at the Bake Shop.  Hank and Tank's BBQ is only open Thursday-Saturday.

We are hoping to meet up with them after Nauvoo so that kept our goodbye's from being too painful.

We put that stump grinder to good use the next day at the VC where we removed 7 or 8 stumps and cleaned up the area around them.  It was hot, heavy work, and we were so happy when it was finished.

Steve got to drive the Bobcat quite a bit that day.  He did a really good job with it.

Jackie, Val, Steve K. and Grandma Ann arrived on Thursday evening.  We took a portion of the rounds on Friday morning.  Steve drove the truck and I rode in Jackie's car to visit and read information from our Sacred Places, guidebook.

Above, they are standing in front of the reconstructed Liberty Jail.  Below they are a Eminence Hill where Joseph Smith was arrested. A half a mile north of the Far West Temple Site is this small dirt road name Kerr after DF Kerr, a local resident who owned a home on Joseph Smith's property which was torn down in the 1880's. 

We went to Hauns Mill and Breckenridge to see the millstone monument.  Then Steve left in the truck to head back to Independence.  He had other commitments with our boss, Mark.

We had lunch at Hank and Tank's BBQ.  We had intended to check out Richmond, but got a text from Liberty that they were going to be in Independence by 3:30 so we skipped the last stop.  We arranged to meet them at the Truman home for a tour.  

We arrived at the Truman home within minutes of each other only to discover that we needed tickets that were only available at a visitor's center a few blocks away.  We drove there and found out that there weren't any more tickets available for that day.

We watched a short movie on Truman and decided to go back to our house for some supper together.

Right behind the visitor's center, we found this relic fire engine that had been restored.  The garage was full of other fire engines in various stages of restoration.  They showed us around and explained their plans.  It was really fun.  We were sorry the Cases missed it but they were eager to get to our place to do laundry so they opted not to return to the fire engine garage.

We had a nice supper together.  It was fun for Grandma Ann to see Libbie's kids and to reconnect all the way around.  After dinner their family went to their hotel in Liberty, Missouri, where they will meet up with Jeff's family again.

That evening Steve, Dave, Craig and our boss, Mark, attended a Missouri tractor pull competition.  I believe that Steve really enjoyed the event.  He especially enjoyed watching Mark's enthusiasm.  I do believe, he loves tractor pulls.

Mark and his wife, Alison, are pictured below.

Saturday morning, Grandma Ann, Liberty, Jackie and I attended the Kansas City temple.  It was crowded but wonderful and I felt like Mary Trulow, who was born in Massachusetts in 1636, was happy to have her endowment complete.  I loved being in the temple with these special people.

That afternoon Liberty went with Cases, and we went to the Truman Library in Independence which was very interesting.  Below we are in a replica of the oval office in the White House during Truman's presidency.

After our tour through the library, we drove to Liberty Jail, to see the Quilt Walk display.  The jail displayed quilts made by several of the missionaries.  Mine was by far the simplest, but I am thrilled that I have been able to actually make a couple of simple quilts.  My friend, Vickie Briggs, made the beautiful quilt displayed above my blue, yellow and white one at the bottom.

That evening, Steve and I drove back to the hotel to say a final goodbye to the Case family.  Xander, Sadie and Benson, will be driving back to Las Vegas with their Case grandparents and will spend a couple of week there.  

We love these kids and their wonderful hugs.  We are so happy that they made the time to drive all the way to Missouri to visit us.  Thanks for your efforts.

Sunday, Jackie, Val, Steve K. and Grandma Ann attended our church with us at our little Riverview Branch.  Jackie brought me a book of simplified hymns to learn to play.  Here she is playing one of them for us in the R. S. room after church.  She recently played this in her sacrament meeting.  It was beautiful.

She and Steve had fun with a duet too.  I love this photo of them playing the piano together.

Later that day, we went to the Visitor's Center and watched the newest church restoration movies.  They are very well done.

Just before we went to the Visitor's Center, we were FaceTimed by our other kids gathered together in our Providence house so that Taylor could give Preston Taylor Price a name and a blessing, surrounded by his extended family.  How miraculous it was for us to witness this special event from our mission home.  Families are eternal and we loved being "there" and witnessing this.

All of our children except for Libbie were able to attend the blessing.  We appreciated the support and were happy to be included.

Monday morning, we headed off to our usual work rounds.  Jackie's group left for a few days at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.  We hosted our branch missionaries, Elders Rowley and Thompson one last time before transfer this week.  We are pretty certain Elder Thompson will have a new assignment.