We had an absolutely beautiful day in the Amana Colonies on our December 12 P-day.
It had snowed the day before, but on Monday there was bright sunshine and blue skies.
A tender mercy for sure. We were blessed to have such a beautiful day.
The Amana Colonies are located a few miles west of Iowa City.
It is a National Historic Landmark.
The villages were settled in 1855 by German Pietists who left Germany because of
persecution and came to America hoping to find religious freedom.
They lived a communal lifestyle until the 1930's.
Today the Amana Colonies represent an American dream come true;
a thriving community founded by religious faith and community spirit.
It is filled with quaint shops and delicious restaurants.
The General Store is filled with all sorts of goodies.
Lots of bottled jams, pickles, fruit, salad dressings and syrup.
They also sell cheese and meat from the
Meat Shop and Smokehouse. Yummy!
It also has beautiful linens, kitchenware, candles and trinkets.
There is a Christmas Store next door that rivals all Christmas Stores.
It was especially fun to be there during the Christmas season.
We also stopped at the Woolen Mill.
Interesting warping and weaving setup.
The blankets and throws are so beautiful.
Mostly cotton threads are used, but they do some wool weaving.
We had lunch at Ox Yoke Inn.
Their food is great. We had Ruben Sandwiches.
The restaurant, of course, specializes in German food.
Inside the restaurant is this awesome fireplace with these
German beer steins lining the mantle.
"The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works." --Psalms 145:9
As we work in the temple, we constantly are blessed with these tender mercies.
It is a blessing to witness over and over the hand of the Lord in all the work we do.
Getting to work with these missionaries is also a tender mercy.
We had a fun FHE. This is our maestro conducting her orchestra,
including the kazoo section.
The cymbals section.
The string section.
And the drum section. We were in the bells section.
President and Sister Irion then lead us in playing Christmas carols on the pipe chimes.
We are not the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but Sister Irion was patient with us.
(She did sing with the choir.) It was a really fun evening,
and of course it ended with lots of good food.
We had a very busy week. It got even busier because of this ice.
We worked our usual six shifts plus a couple of extra shifts.
We worked our double shift on Tuesday and then substituted on Thursday for another double shift.
The weather on Friday was starting to get bad so many of the district workers who drive far to
get to the temple called with regrets that they could not make it in to work.
President asked us if we could also work the Friday PM shift to cover for those unable to come in.
We had friends, the Nelson's, we worked with in the Mesa Temple coming to the wedding of
their son in the Nauvoo Temple on Friday evening.
We work Friday AM shift so we wondered how we would be able see them.
President was unaware of this when he asked us to work.
The tender mercy was we were assigned to positions exactly at the right time to see the Nelson's.
It was so wonderful to see some faces from home.
As we often say, the Lord is in charge, and He certainly is.
"But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord
are over all those whom he hath chosen,
because of their faith,
to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance" --1 Nephi 1:20
We had some severe weather. The wind chill Sunday morning was -20.
And there was snow and ice. The river has frozen over.
This is the view from the end of Parley Street.
We are in awe of the pioneers who lived here in this weather and
who crossed this frozen river to seek safety from the mobs.
It certainly was not an easy task.
We are certain they too were blessed with tender mercies.
Church in Nauvoo was canceled Sunday and President Irion
asked that the missionary couples stay home and not
travel to their out of town wards.
Which turned out to be another tender mercy.
After working 8 shifts we were happy not to drive 2 hours to church.
We truly had a day of rest.
This is the view of the river looking north from Rand Park, Iowa.
The flag flying in front of the temple is always a beautiful site.
Recently we were walking past the laundry room in the basement of the temple
and saw a most remarkable site.
The temple has several different flags.
They often need to be repaired because of the wind and the ice.
The largest flag, 10x19 feet, had been brought in to be trimmed and hemmed.
There on the counter in the middle of the laundry surrounded by white was
old glory with her brilliant red, white and blue.
It was a remarkable site.
