Idahoan in Iowa: Pageants and Protestors

Hey, what's up, hello?

How's it going fans? Hope you all had a great week, this week was pretty awesome. We got a lot of work done and had tons of fun along the way and that's always a bonus. We did a lot of cool things this week so I'm just going to make a list for you to peruse as you skip to the pictures and exit out of this email and move on to the next!

-Monday we had another dope P-day down here in Nauvoo, kind of sick of all these tourists trying to use my gym. But that's a rant for another day.

-Tuesday, okay so this was a sick day. So we worked really hard on Tuesday and had a lot of miracles happen, we taught a lot of our investigators that we found last week and tried to get people to church. It was a good day full of hard work. Then that night we were able to finally see the Nauvoo Pageant! We took our recent convert Alex, and his mom. Man that Pageant folks, it's something else. I'd encourage everyone to see it at least once. It's amazing, at the end of the show the whole cast sings "The Spirit of God" and they turn off all the lights and in the Background the only light shining is The temple up on the hill. I think that might have been one of the most spiritual things I've been apart of on my mission.

-Wednesday was a total grind day, we found 4 new Investigators and just tried to tear things up while we were in our area. It was a good time.

-Thursday was a lot of fun, I got to go on exchanges with my son, Elder Esplin. It was great being back with him, it felt just like Old times. We found a lot of new investigators together and argued with a few people as well, just like the good ole days ;) Then that night we went up to Iowa City again to stay the night before Zone Conference with my homies Elder Zinn and Elder Cook. We ate at T_road that night so that was probably the highlight haha.

-Friday we had Zone Conference in Iowa City! It was really good, we talked a lot about getting people to Church. It was awesome. I got to see my homie/ former comp, Elder Gundersen before he goes home in a week. I'll miss that gentle giant.

- Saturday. Saturday was the bomb. (Even though we were outside all day and it was 101 degrees and 109 with the humidity and heat index) It was Elder Butterfield's birthday and we spent the whole day in Nauvoo! We went down at 8:00 to go through the temple with some recent converts! Then after we had lunch and went and saw some of the sights. Then that night we got to see the Nauvoo Pageant again! It was funny, So there was a ton of us missionaries going to watch the pageant and we were walking across the streets to the Pageant grounds and all the protesters just went crazy. All just yelling and swearing and telling us we were going to hell and jesus hates us. It was pretty humorous. As I was walking by I saw one of them holding a "quote" from Jesus. It was funny cause later on in that quote the Savior says, "Blessed are those they which are persecuted righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I just thought that was some good food for thought.

-Sunday we had a good day at Church. We planned for Kriag's Baptism next Saturday, and he asked me to preform his Baptism. I'm so excited for this guy! I love him!

I love you guys have a great week here's some pics:

1: I'm a pretty big deal here in Nauvoo, as you can tell by the sticky note, reserving my seat.