Love from Elder & Sister Freestone

[Pat Freestone]

Good Sabbath all you Good People!
Hope this finds you well and happy! Such an amazing time of year with the signs of spring literally exploding all around us. This is such a new and unique experience for us desert dwellers! Absolutely loving every moment!
The Temple is closed for two weeks for cleaning and maintenance, so nearly all of the temple missionaries have requested permission to travel outside mission boundaries. There are so many perks being senior missionaries!
We had a wonderful time with Chris’s sister Ann, his brother Phil Freestone and wife Liz. We have had the wonderful opportunity to travel the world with them and together we explored Nauvoo with new eyes.
We traveled back in time as we wandered the historic Nauvoo sites, shed tears at Carthage, and together feasted on every word of General Conference.
On Tuesday, (4/7) we all drove to Springfield and toured the Lincoln sites. We could have spent days in the Lincoln Museum and it was pretty amazing to literally run in to fellow Nauvoo Temple missionaries, Paul and Sue Kartchner. The Lincoln home is a national park and the first and only home Lincoln ever owned. It was here that he campaigned for the presidency because in those days, people came to the candidate, even invited into their home, rather than the other way around. Hard to imagine that the family would never return to this beloved home, which had no electricity or running water, to live in the palatial and modern White House.
We spent the night in the heart of Amish county, and had dinner at Yoder’s Buffet, yum!
The next morning we headed back to St Louis and had just enough time to ride the tram to the top of the St Louis Arch, (once again bumping into the Kartchners) before we dropped everyone off at the airport.
Of course you can’t leave this area without an and quick drive through the Main Street of historic St Charles.
Spent Wednesday night (4/8) in Carmel, Indian where the Indianapolis temple is located and also visited her next door neighbor, Zionsville with her charming downtown and cobblestone streets.
Making our way into Michigan we drove through the little German Christmas Village of Frankenmuth. Who knew? We spent the night in Bay City, Michigan where, the next day (4/9) and with his mission President's permission, we took our missionary grandson, Gage Cook and his companion to lunch. Time flew by as we talked the sweet language of missionary service. The food was great and the food for the soul was even better!
After lunch we headed west towards Lake Michigan with a stop in Grand Rapids to visit the Gerald R Ford Presidential Library and Museum. It is a beautiful facility and tells the story of another president who came from humble beginnings, raised by a single mom, earned the rank of Eagle Scout, narrowly escaped death while in the military, was a devoted husband, father and statesman, and found himself serving his country as Commander and Chief, an office he did not seek nor campaigned for. We gained great admiration for the good man.
Driving on, we followed the Shore Drive around enormous Lake Michigan, stopping now and then to walk the sandy beaches and admire the quaint villages the iconic lighthouses.
We overnighted (4/10) in Holland, Michigan where the tulips adorning the windmills and Dutch landscape were just days away from bursting open! Nauvoo's were already glorious when we departed. Which bring us to our last and favorite stop; spending a few days with Colette & Cooper and grandchildren Taylor and Tilly in Naperville just outside of Chicago and only a 4 hour drive back to Nauvoo. Attending church is always wonderful and worshipping with family is even sweeter!!! The lesson was President Holland’s last conference talk, “Now I See”. This part was particularly powerful to me:
“So what if the answers to our prayers come in plain or convoluted ways? Are we willing to persevere, to keep trying to live Christ’s gospel no matter how much spit and clay it takes? It may not always be clear to us what is being done or why, and from time to time, we will all feel a little like the senior sister who said, “Lord, how about a blessing that isn’t in disguise?”
I was also reminded of the recent talk by Sister Susan Porter, “Just as the young boy did not have to figure out how a small amount of bread and fish could feed so many people, you do not need to worry about fixing all the problems around you. Heavenly Father can provide miracles when you simply offer what you have. When you say, “Here am I, send me,” Heavenly Father can take something small and simple and make it great!”
It has been a “great” week and we are certain that there are many more to follow as we stand at the halfway mark of our mission and begin the bustling and vibrant spring/summer season here in the beautiful Nauvoo Temple.
May we all feel God’s love and recognize His choicest blessings and miracles in our lives!
Love you all,
Grandma & Grandpa, Mom & Dad, Chris & Pat

[Pat Freestone]

Good Sabbath to all our favorite people from beautiful Nauvoo!
Tonight is a beautifully calm April evening. A blessed state after a very stormy week. Twice this week we responded to the hour long tornado warning sirens and took shelter in the basement of the parking garage that is across from the temple. Tornadoes touched down in towns nearby, Montrose, right across the river There are so many analogies you can draw from this, a sacrament meeting talk just begging to be written but I will leave that to your imagination.
Monday (4/13) we bid farewell to Colette, Cooper, Taylor, and Tilly in Naperville and returned to Nauvoo. We discovered that while the missionaries are away the ants will play as they have invaded our entire apartment complex. We have taken every food item out of our cupboards and set ant traps which they love and have invited the whole ant kingdom to come join the party. In theory they are supposed to eat the bate and return back to their nest and feed it to the queen who should die and wipe out the whole ant kingdom. We have our doubts that this is working as it seems that more rogue ants are coming and staying rather than going back to their nest. Definitely not a perfect system, or at least the ants didn’t read the directions on the box!!!
We miss being in the temple during the closure so when we were asked to come on Tuesday (4/14) to help with some final cleaning, we gladly agreed. “We Love Thy House O God!”
Wednesday (4/15) evening neighborhood game night was interrupted by tornado warning sirens. One of the missionary couples have a daughter who is a Meteorologist. She was watching our area and said to “Seek shelter now!” So we hung out in the basement parking for about an hour! Not necessarily frightened, just talking precautions near the Temple, the safest place on earth!
On Thursday (4/16) nineteen new temple missionary couples arrived in Nauvoo. We spent the day unloading cars and helping them settle in. They are lovely people and so excited to be here. They were welcomed Friday (4/17) night by the massive storm, which you probably watched, stretching from Kansas City to Canada. It had multiple tornadoes spinning inside it and cut a path of destruction in its wake. The winds and rain in Nauvoo came in gale force. We parked in the basement again to avoid the promised ping pong ball size hail storm. The sirens were going crazy and unrelenting! The locals, including Colette are pretty much unruffled by the whole debacle and simply chide, “Welcome to the Midwest!”
Today (4/19) we accompanied our new missionaries to church at the Nauvoo Ward. We then spent the afternoon with them in the temple helping them navigate their way around before their setting apart by a member of the temple presidency. This evening we had a Meet and Greet at the Arrival Center for everyone and boy oh boy, we are a large and mighty group; prepared to take the Nauvoo Temple schedule up to the next level. For all of you planning a visit out here, just know we are ready for you to have a testimony building experience of a lifetime!
We bid you farewell for another week and express our love for each of you. May our Gracious and Generous Father in Heaven continue to shower down His choicest blessings on each of us and may we be in the right place, true to our covenants, to receive the blessing we so desperately need. Jesus Christ has promised to always be our shelter from the storm!!! I know He is! I know He lives! I know He keeps His promises!

1…hearken and hear and behold what I, the Lord God, shall say unto you, even Jesus Christ your Redeemer;
2 The light and the life of the world, a light which shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not;
3 Who so loved the world that he gave his own life, that as many as would believe might become the sons of God. 4 And blessed are you because you have believed;
5 And more blessed are you because you are called of me to preach my gospel—
6 To lift up your voice as with the sound of a trump, both long and loud, and cry repentance unto a crooked and perverse generation, preparing the way of the Lord for his second coming.
7 For behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, the time is soon at hand that I shall come in a cloud with power and great glory.(D&C 34)
So blessed to be His Missionaries!