Visitor's Primary

When we first arrived in Nauvoo, we became aware that assignments would be made to all the temple missionaries as to where they would be attending church each Sunday.  Rather than have all of us sitting in the Nauvoo ward, we would be spread out amongst all the wards and branches in the temple district.  It made sense because there were so many who had strong leadership, music, and teaching skills.  Our talents could be put to better use by sending us to a branch or ward where we could offer a hand in leader and member support.  Many people drove up to 2 1/2 hours each way to attend their assigned wards.

The Card's (behind), The Allen's with their oxen and wagon, The Bishop's, The Jorgensen's with the cow bell,
The Nelson's with the whittling knife and whistle.

We were selected to attend the Nauvoo 1st Ward to help support the primary in staffing their visitor's primary.  Nauvoo experiences such a large influx of people visiting while on their vacations that the ward primary is overwhelmed.  It was not uncommon to have between 1000 and 1200 people attending sacrament meeting.  Not everyone stayed for the entire block because the sites opened at 10:00 AM and many left to go tour the homes etc or go over to Carthage.  But the children who did stay added greatly to the regular primary and made it difficult for the teachers to manage their classes.  To solve that problem there were four couples called to help with the visitor primary. These were the Allen's, the Bishop's, the Jorgensen's and ourselves plus another couple, the Card's who attended every third week or so when they were not driving to their outbound ward.  We had plenty of musical talent.  Sister Bishop was amazing at leading the music.  Sisters Allen and Jorgansen were great at playing the piano.  The Elders took over the job of providing the sharing time presentations and Marge alternated with conducting and teaching the CTR class.  We didn't have very much room so we divided into just two classes, Valiant's and CTR's.  We soon learned to be adaptable because we never knew if we would have 10 or 50 in attendance.   

We started out with all the children together in the same room.  We had them put on name tags to help us be able to talk to them. During our opening exercises we sang the "Hello" song every week because all of us were visitors!  We acknowledged birthdays.  We had a map of the USA and the World with little dots for the children to come up and put a dot to show where they were from.  We had a pretty good representation from across the country but of course Utah won the prize for the most visitors. 

Then we had our sharing time.  Elder Jorgensen started the first week.  He had a lot of pictures that showed the organization of the church from The First Vision down to the Nauvoo period. Then he talked about what the children had to do to help their parents.  Pioneer children had a lot of chores. Among them was the job of finding the cow in the evening so she could be milked.  He found a old cowbell at an antique shop which he strung on a belt so it could hang around his neck.  Then he taught the children why the pioneer children could recognize their own cow by the sound of the bell.  He also played "Come, Come Ye Saints" on his harmonica. The next week Elder Nelson took his turn.  He put wide blue masking tape on the floor to show a rectangle 3 x 11 feet.  This was the exact size of the wagon beds made by direction of Brigham Young for the pioneers to move west in.  To help them understand how small that really was, he had slips of paper that listed all the things they were supposed to pack.  Each child was given a chance to come up and be that thing and stand inside the box.  When there wasn't room for anything else he asked, "What about the toys."  Then he told the story about President John Taylor returning back to Nauvoo for the hand carved rocking horse he had made for his son but had left behind. John loved his son so much he was willing to risk coming back to get it.  Heavenly Father loves us very much too.  They could see a horse like that in the John Taylor home.  Then he told them the story of the Whittling and Whistling Brigade and later added the story of his third great grandmother, Elizabeth Taylor.  On his week Elder Allen prepared a sharing time and showed a model of a wagon and ox team (which he carved himself)  and told the story of Mary Fielding Smith and the healing of her oxen and about how much faith it took to be a pioneer.  After that we had singing time and classes.  It went really well and we had a lot of fun.

These wonderful sisters comprised the Nauvoo 1st Ward Primary Presidency