Nauvoo Mission Reunion

My favorite Sister Bateman!

Our little Nauvoo Mission Reunion was just this past friday!  I still can't believe I was so blessed to serve with such incredible people in such an amazing place.  It was so good see everyone again!  I wish I had taken more pictures, but I sort of forgot I had a camera most of the time.  :)  Most anyone who reads my blog or knows me knows I served as a Performing Missionary in Nauvoo during the summer of 2007.  I won't bore everyone by saying how great it was and by talking about Nauvoo...don't worry.  I've written enough about that here, so I'm sure everyone is tired of hearing about it.  (Though I won't ever get tired of talking about it.)  Lol.  

I didn't always want to serve a full-time proselyting mission, but by about the time I was 23, I was actually dying to go.  But it just never seemed like what I was supposed to do at the time.  So I finished school, and halfway through my senior year, I felt like I should audition to be a performing missionary.  It didn't fit in with my life plan by then, but it was what felt right.  I couldn't argue with that feeling.  So I auditioned, I made it, and was called to serve as a performing missionary in Nauvoo that summer.  It changed my life.  I was already doing all I could before I went, but something inside me came alive because of my time there.  I remember a conversation with my mission president a few weeks before I went home.  I made a comment to him about how much I had always wanted to serve a "real" full-time mission, but had never felt right about it.  He immediately corrected me by telling me that the time I had just spend there in Nauvoo was a real mission, and that he had no doubt whatsoever that I had done the right thing.  He told me never to let anyone tell me I hadn't served a real mission, and that every time someone asked me if I was a returned missionary, I was to tell them YES.  :)  So I do.  And I know that's what I was supposed to do, and when I was supposed to do it.  Anyway.  I only say all of that because every now again, there's a well-meaning individual who says something like, "Oh, so it wasn't a real mission, then..."  This is me, with-holding all comments in an effort to react in a mature manner.  :)  

My mission was so different from most other missions, but that didn't make it any less of a mission.  After we spent a lot of time visiting, the YPMs were asked to come up and sing a few numbers.  It was silly and absolutely not perfect (multiple years of YPMs, no practice...lol...you can imagine.)  :)  but we sang "Come, come ye saints" at the end of it, just like we had every single night in Nauvoo at the end of "Sunset by the Mississippi."  I think we sang one line by ourselves, and then everyone else joined in singing it.  I just remember standing there, amazed at the spirit I felt, and looking at the faces of all those incredible people I love...and I just can't believe I was so blessed.  I only hope I contributed even a portion of what I gained there.  

Bingham, Wyson, and me.  I love my sisters!  :)