Rudi and Kathy in Nauvoo: Nauvoo excitement

We had some excitement in the temple on Monday afternoon. Two friends of mine who work for Honeywell in Salt Lake were here to repair problems with the control system in the temple. Last year they started an upgrade on the Honeywell control system and they were here to complete the installation. I spent the day with them to help with the point to point check. They left at 4:30 pm and I and two other engineers stayed to do some clean up work. At about 5:00 pm the fire alarm sounded. We looked on the fire panel and saw that there was a fire on the 5th floor. I rushed to the 5th floor and found that the fire sprinkler in the number 6 sealing room was spraying a huge amount of water. I called down to one of the other engineers to turn off the fire pump and shut off the fire system valve. He turned off the pump but could not shut off the valve because there was a chain with a lock. Some time was spent trying to find the key to the lock so it took a while to turn off the water. I franticly tried to direct the water into a floor drain in the janitor closet between sealing room 5 and 6 with a squeegee until the water was turned off. There was no fire in the room so what caused the sprinkler to open up? The temperature outside that morning was 23 below 0 and the sprinkler is close to an outside wall, so the water above the sprinkler froze pushing the fire link down and causing the water spray when the temperature got warmer outside. The security guard called everyone he could think to call so we very soon had a lot of help to clean things up.

There were only two rooms damaged so the temple opened Tuesday morning as usual with no physical appearance to the patrons that anything had gone wrong. There was more damage on the fourth floor marriage waiting room which is below, than in the room where the water was spraying. The cleaning crew and engineers got all of the water cleaned up by 10:00 pm Monday night. By Friday all of the sheet rock had been replaced and painted and light fixtures repaired (several were full of water) and carpet cleaned and walls repainted and most of the chairs cleaned up, some of the chairs were damaged beyond repair. The wood floor which got wet seems to be ok with a little cupping. As bad as things appeared after the clean up Monday night
the situation could have been much worse. Usually no one is in the temple on Monday afternoon after 3:00 pm except the security guard, who would have to call someone about the alarm and the water would have been on for an hour or more until someone came in to turn off the water flooding the whole building. The Lord is looking out for his temple by having us there and by forcing us to be more vigilant in protecting the temple from the elements. We are finding several places that are in need of more insulation.

This morning the temperature at the bank next to the temple was 23 below 0 again so we are watching things very closely. It is sunny outside with no wind but so very cold. We were scheduled to go on a horse drawn sleigh ride this morning but it was canceled because it is too cold for the horses. It is not too cold for people but too cold for horses, go figure. Next Saturday morning we have the exodus march down Parley street to reenact the exodus of February 1846. I wonder how those people survived that crossing. Maybe we are just a bunch of pansies.

Yesterday we had our break the fast dinner at the Halls across the street from us. Included were the Durrant's and the Warner's. You know Susan and George Durrant, our resident historians. The Warner's are a Missionary couple from the Des Moines mission assigned the the Nauvoo Ward. We have two senior missionary couples in Nauvoo from the Des Moines mission. The other couple are the Christensen's who work in the Family history center. The temple missionaries include those two couples in our activities. We also include a young missionary who is called by the Nauvoo Stake President to serve a mission in the Family history center and in the Temple. He could not serve a regular mission because of his weight. He is doing a very good job and is loved by all of us missionaries. I did not know that Stake Presidents could call missionaries but Nauvoo is a special place. Back to the break the fast dinner, it was very good, fish tacos. This 30 lb mission might turn into a 60 lb mission. We need to do more fasting and less eating.

Every Tuesday and Thursday evening we go to a lecture at the Stake Center given by Brother and Sister Durrant. Last week Susan spent two sessions talking about the 12 original Apostles of which only 3 stayed faithful. It was most interesting about what we can learn to stay faithful. We are loving these insights into this early church history. Susan is a very interesting and funny teacher and George gives a short 5 or 10 minute opening background in his life, very funny guy with a spiritual ending. Each day we get an email from them telling us what happened on this day in history. Yesterday we learned, February 2, 1833 Joseph Smith finished reviewing his inspired translation of the New Testament. Then we learned the second entry for February 2, 1980 from the journal of George Durrant:
"The church announced the new consolidated church schedule today. 3 hours, all on Sunday. I look forward to it but at the same time, I like returning to sacrament meeting on Sunday afternoon. The price of gasoline is now $1.20 per gallon, so I suppose as that continues to climb, many aspect of our lives will have to be rearranged".

Each day is a real treat here in Nauvoo. Love working in the temple, love the temple missionaries, love the people who come to the temple, love the sight Missionaries, love our cottage, love each other (may have to ask Kathy about this), love being here.

Rudi and Kathy

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