Jim & Jolene Paxman in Nauvoo

Sun. Sept 30, 2018 I have just realized that the videos that I post here are not playing back for you....not sure why but until I figure it out, I will post them on Instagram.  This has been a great week!  For one thing, the weather has cooled down and the humidity has been bearable.  We got some rain yesterday and it was only about 10 - 12 degrees but it sure felt good.  Apparently, we will have a couple of days this coming week that will be in the upper 20s but that is fine because the humidity is not so high.  Colors are just barely starting to show. According to the locals, they will really be on show for Halloween which is a really big deal around here.  They do a big parade downtown and we carve about 500 pumpkins to line the streets.   This is one picture of the sunset that I was telling you about last week during the s'more roast that we had....I forgot to include it. We have a district service project once / month and on Friday, we...

Post script to Sun. Sept 23, 2018 I forgot to include this....it is a picture of a HUGE pile of corn.  I know that it looks like grain but it is not !   This is a big facility that stores the corn and other crops.  It is located on the river bank and it will load these crops into barges that take the crops to wherever.  One barge load of grain is the equivalent of 80 semi truckloads.  

Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018 Horses = 4 legged missionaries On the weekends, the horses are put into pasture beside the FM headquarter buildings.  Each Monday morning, as we go to prayer meeting, we see them grazing peacefully.  At 8:00 they are taken back to the barns.  As I left to go to a job on Monday morning at about 7:50, the horses were all lined up at the gate...they knew it was time to go and get their breakfast !  It is really fascinating to watch them.  They go over a mile run up to the barn and turn in and each go to "their" stall for feeding.  I and Sis. Howard decided to find a spot along the route and I took a picture of them as they ran past.  Enjoy! Also wanted to show you the squeeze that was built by our welder missionary (Elder Dare) to use when they shoe the horses.  Apparently, one of the horses sat on the older wooden one and broke it so he designed and built this.  He also designed and built new feed mangers for the ...

Sunday, Sept. 16, 2018 Saints: The Standard of Truth I was thinking that there wasn't much to tell you this week but as I looked at my pictures, I realized that I was wrong...does that surprise anyone?!?!  LOL  As I left you last week, Jim was doing ushering/security for the Face to Face event with Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.  I went to the Visitor's Center to watch it on the big screen.  Jim ended up inside of the sattelite truck that does the transmitting.  He thought that it was cool.  Here is a picture of what it looked like inside.   It was an enjoyable event.  They were really promoting the new book "Saints" as a reference guide to read about the history of the church and the early pioneers --written in a very readable style. Hope that you all take the opportunity to watch that on lds.org if you missed it last Sunday.  On Monday, we missionaries met with Elder and Sister Cook on Mond...

Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018 Nauvoo On the Road Just a quick comment....how is it September already ??  Time is flying by ! Nauvoo On the Road is where we load a van with 4-5 couples and pull a trailer with all kinds of supplies and attend the various fairs in the surrounding countryside.  This is a promotion to help the local people be aware of what is available in Nauvoo. I'll try to show you (by picture) what we do: First of all:  we were in Quincy Illinois yesterday.  This is where the saints found refuge after they were driven out of Missouri in the middle of winter.  Our location was an island in the Mississippi river called Quinissippi Island and the fair was called Log Cabin days.  They have taken several log cabins and made a little village on this island.  To get to the island, we had to cross a little wooden (one lane) bridge.  It was alittle scary because the river was flooding alittle because of all the rain that we have received ...

Sunday, Sept. 2, 2018 Jim's week....as promised !    Jim is a outdoor carpenter....which means, that he has responsibility for all of the fences (picket and split-rail) as well as picnic tables and benches.  I might add that there are literally miles of picket fence in Nauvoo so, needless to say, he sometimes dreams of picket fences...haha!   Anything that touches the ground here will rot in a few years because of the high humidity.  Therefore, repairing picket fence is an on-going project.  They have picket fence surrounds around all of the garbages and air-conditioning / gas units for each home for protection from the racoons, as well as picket surrounds around the hundreds of trees that need protection from the deer.  Here is a couple of pictures of Jim working on the fence at the Sarah Granger Kimball home (in the background) with his service elder --Elder Hixson from Oaklahoma This bottom picture gives you an idea of the length of...