What we do in our spare time

Four or five mornings a week we cross the Mississippi River into Fort Madison, Iowa and go to the YMCA to exercise. I take a water aerobics class and Eldon takes a Silver Sneakers class which uses elastic bands and balls. He enjoys it in spite of being the only man in a class of women. (Or maybe because he is the only man in a class of women.) So we've both toned up a little and lost a little weight and it seems like climbing all those stairs in the temple is easier than it was at first. So that's all good.

Our teacher, Kathy

Eldon's in his Silver Sneakers t-shirt

Eldon has become the geode guru of the temple missionaries. He has gotten several others interested in it. Our car will be several inches lower with the weight of all the geodes we'll be bringing home with us. He keeps thinking he wiped them all out of the Joseph's Creek area, but the next time he goes back, he finds more. He's gotten the equipment to split them, including safety glasses. And he lined the beautiful flower bed with them.

Our FHE group had a nice outing yesterday on the Martyrdom Trail. Brother Franklin was our guide. Evidently there was a road leading up to the front of the temple at the time, right where the sculptures are of Joseph and Hyrum on their horses heading off to Carthage.

The picture is at a place where Joseph stopped called Golden's Point which is the junction of the roads to Warsaw, Nauvoo, and Carthage. (None of the Golden brothers joined the church, but their sister did and after she moved to Utah she became a plural wife of Heber C. Kimball and named their son J. Golden.)

Elder Franklin, Terry and Judy Peal, us, and Sandi and Kent Winegar

This story is told about Golden's Point. The constable went to Warsaw to get volunteers to keep the mob under control, but he was run out of town. He met Porter Rockwell and two other men here and deputized them to protect him. Porter stood in the middle of the road and three rednecks galloped towards him shooting. He shot the first guy in the stomach who died before they could get him back to Warsaw. Porter was charged with murder but acquitted because it was self defense.

After we got to Carthage we went to the Dairy Queen and enjoyed sundaes and socializing.

During waiting times at the temple I've been reading the Bible Dictionary. (I finished the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price.) I'm to the D's. Once in a while I come across a thought provoking entry. For example, damnation is the opposite of salvation and also exists in degrees.