General Conference and Early Spring

     

           Sister Curtis and Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Field Museum.  Sister Curtis is the younger one.

 Its been nearly a month since we sent our last update.  We planned on updating sooner, but it seems like things keep getting in the way.  We love it here.  We know that the Ottawa, Illinois ward is where we are supposed to be at this time.  We are keeping busy with visiting members, meeting with the young missionaries and providing service in any way we can.

 

     This last weekend was general conference.  We went around to many members with a schedule and instructions on how to watch here in Illinois.  They talked a lot about missionary work in conference, so we were glad we are here so we didn’t need to feel guilty.  We loved President Nelson’s talk about removing conflict from our lives.  Deanne loved the women’s session, especially Sister Bingham’s and Elder Renlund’s talks.  Our mission president, President Shumway was made an Area Seventy during conference, even though he still has three months left on his mission assignment.  He says he will need to fulfill both assignments, but he plans on spending most of his time here in Chicagoland.

 

     It doesn’t quite feel like spring here yet, although we no longer have the subzero cold.  So far, spring has been very wet and cold.  We had another very cold day distributing food outdoors for the food bank back on the second Saturday of March.  Deanne thought she was going to freeze again.  We are going to do it again this coming Saturday, so we are hoping for milder weather.

 

        We have taken the opportunity to go into Chicago on preparation days a couple of times.  We visited the Field Museum of Chicago on one trip and the Museum of Science and Industry on the other trip.  Both museums are world class and we loved the experience.

 

      Today we had another zone preparation day activity.  We have these once every transfer (about six weeks).  We played games with the missionaries and we provided sloppy joes for lunch.  We really do love the young missionaries.

 

We love all of you and miss being with you in-person.  We are very glad that we can still connect with you over the phone or the internet.

 

Thanks for your prayers, we need them.

 

Love, Elder and Sister Curtis

A Civil War monument at a small cemetery here in Utica.  There are about a dozen graves of Civil war soldiers around the monument.

 

A monument to the Radium Girls in Ottawa.  There was a Westclock factory in La Salle and the luminescent dials were painted by women in a shop in nearby Ottawa.  The women would lick the paint brush to keep a sharp point.  Many of these women died or were disfigured from radiation poisoning.

We loved an exhibit on art made out of Legos at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Sister Curtis on the I & M Canal tow path between Utica and Ottawa.

Turkey vulture.  We love the birds here, although it is hard to get good pictures.  We have seen cardinals, pelicans, sandhill cranes, and bald eagles

The exhibit on the man-eating lions of Tsavo in the Field Museum.  These lions starred in the film The Ghost and the Darkness.

The Chicago River dyed green for St. Patrick’s day.

See the stickers on the truck we followed on our way to Joliet.

The Joliet Zone playing a game by picking up M&Ms with a straw.