Quieter Days Are Coming.

Today we're going to the temple and to the bank and the post office and trying to get some letters and exploring done.
Pageant is over. Gone. Moved out. The cast has gone home and taken most of our visitors with them. Nauvoo is back to being a quiet little city on the bend of the river. As the Pageant moved out Vocal Point moved in. Vocal Point is an acapella group from BYU that comes out to Nauvoo every year. Sister Meyer and I watched last night. They were good. To my understanding, after Vocal Point leaves this place is suppose to get pretty dead pretty quick. Vocal Point will take the young preforming missionaries (YPMs) with them and a ton of Senior missionaries go home in August. Nauvoo is full of goodbyes, full of change.
When they all leave the sisters schedule will be filled with dinner and teaching appointments! The Senior couples all sign up to let the sisters come teach them the lessons and generally are more than happy to stick a plate of food in front of you while you do. I am really looking forward to it. It's like pregaming for the field. Sooner than we know it I will be writing you all an e-mail telling you where I'm going on my outbound. I feel like I entered the MTC yesterday. I can't believe it's been this long.
For right now I live for the call center. We always have something to do in the call center. I never thought that having people say they want free stuff would make me so happy. I love the call center. The hours I spend in there are probably my happiest. The sisters all watched Sunset by the Mississippi for the last time this summer the other night. It was a great show. The YPMs all had the sisters join in the parade before hand. To be in the parade you have to make a hat (the parade is for little kids). Anyway, as I made my hat I heard a "Sister Bailey!" come from behind me. I turned around expecting to see a YPM and nearly fell over when I saw a John Maruji, my friend from college, standing there! It was the neatest little treat to see him. Nauvoo is referred to by a lot of the Senior missionaries as "a celestial bubble" referring to how people feel when they come here. The Celestial Kingdom is the place where we are able to be with our families again. For eternity. And live with our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ again. For eternity. In "a state of never ending happiness". Nauvoo is the place to make CRAZY connections with people. It happens all the time. I think that that will be very similar to the Celestial kingdom. What happy reunions will take place there as we turn around when our name is called to see a friend, a mother, and grandfather, a cousin a great great great great grand father. I can almost hear the smiling and cheering that will go on there. And then to think of the greatest reunion of all, the one we will have with our Eldest Brother, Our Savior, Our Rock and Our Redeemer, The Son Of God, Jesus Christ.The One who holds us up when we can't stand and steadiest us when we falter. The one who "quiets all our fears". I can't even imagine what that will be like.

"And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall".(Helaman 5:12)
"And moreover, I would desire that you should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it". (Mosiah 2:41)

I love you all.

Sister Bailey