There and Back Again: Week 72 If you can't take the heat...take something for those hot flashes

Last Sunday there was snow, on Monday the sites were all closed due to ice and extreme cold. Yesterday it was 90degrees! Mother Nature is having hot flashes. We didn't let that stop us. Speaking of Mothers.....

On Tuesday night I participated in a readers theater performance of the organization of the first Female Relief Society. Several of my ancestors were among the first 20 women who organized themselves under the priesthood to do "Something Extraordinary" to create a force for doing good in the world.

Relief Society helps prepare women for the blessings of eternal life as they increase faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and His Atonement; strengthen individuals, families, and homes through ordinances and covenants; and work in unity to help those in need.

They are the oldest and largest women's organization in the world.

On Thursday our international women's day activity was WONDERFUL!

All the food was beautiful and delicious.

The music (songs performed in different languages) was very good.

I sang "Let the Holy Spirit Guide" in Madarin after much tutoring from my sweet daughter, Spring who served an 18 month mission in Taiwan. Then Sister Ballard presented a video of groups and individual relief society women from all over the world sending us a greeting from their country. Egypt, Uganda, New Zealand, Uruguay, Brazil, Portegal, France, U.K., Taiwan, Beijing, etc. It made me weep. I felt so proud to be a member of the relief society!

Elder Cullen was a super hero in the kitchen helping us to assemble the three veggie boquets. Everyone helped and no one had a heavy burdern.

On Friday we got to work in the GREENHOUSE! We helped pot over 2000 "plugs"

it's going to be SO beautiful.

Saturday we started printing and binding the relief society cookbooks I was in charge of assembling.

We will give every sister a free copy.

We also attended a wonderful community event called "He is Risen" there were many many displays with the atonement and ressurection theme and lots of beautiful musical numbers and free refreshments.

Then we attended a Nauvoo Symphony SPRING CONCERT which was VERY good especially for a tiny town! Such an uplifting way to end such an amazing week. So while Mother Nature gives us whiplash (There's a huge wind storm going on right now!) We continue to celebrate, serve, and support each other and look forward to Christ's second coming.

He is RISEN!

There and Back Again: Week 71 False Spring

This has been a week of extreme opposites. We had warm weather and flowers blooming, then in the night I was awakened by a roaring sound. I usually sleep with ear plugs but that night I didn't want to miss the expected tornado siren. The storm we were experiencing dropped HUGE hail stones on our son's, Ben's, house. We put our Pearl and Lazarus in the Bushnell Garages with the tractor and event chairs! LOL

Then the weather cleared and it was so warm we didn't need to wear a sweater!

The weather seemed to reflect the highs and lows of mission life as well as we supported our friends in their trials and rejoiced with them in their joys, both feasting and fasting. We took on some of their burdens (taking the international dinner off their shoulders) so they could leave the mission and help their children for a little while. Today we made 450 wontons and put them in our freezer for this coming Thursday's event, celebrating women around the world.

and others took on our burdens by offering to help! Because of this "one heart, one mind" attitude we are all able to rejoice even in our trials and all of our burdens became light. This is the joy that comes from centering our lives on Jesus Christ and serving and loving each other as he would have us do. I am grateful. A snow storm is expected tomorrow...it will snow on the daffodills, but their joyful color will be seen through the snow and make it more beautiful. So is it a "false" Spring? or are the blooms a reminder of what is coming even when there is a storm? Perhaps it's just a "loving reminder" from Heavenly Father.

There and Back Again: Week 70 Your prayers and fasting are working!

First of ALL...Thank you everyone for your fasting and prayers and please do not stop. This week we have seen baby steps towards unity and less contention. Our efforts are working...keep it up. Just two days ago, FM leadership changed our morning devotionals to be more inclusive, mandatory for paid employees, and spiritual for the express purpose of becoming more unified. Other things are micro changing as well.

As activity directors for the mission we pray and counsel with our committee to provide activites that serve the individual and the group and help those individuals come closer to each other and Christ as they play.

It's a fun challenge. We make Kahoots (an online game) with fun getting to know you questions, or pictures of missionaries when they were children or newly married and give out prizes. It's very fun to scour Salvation Army for likely prizes.

We found two couples to teach us social dance and line dancing...SO fun.

We coordinate dinners and help others who plan dinners by providing games or activites to make them more bonding.

We encourage others to share their talents and shine. We help others develop their talents too! I just heard this week that a computer class I taught about google slides, helped one couple do a very cool remote fireside for their home ward! They were thrilled to have the computer skills they learned here from our activity. That was SO validating to me.

Last night was our BIG "Racing Down the Covenant Path Pinewood Derby" Activity. I could NOT believe how many people came and how eager so many people were to make derbies! We had an "open" category and provided wheels for Veggie Cars too.

It was very funny and fun and before the race we had a short lesson on what our covenants are and what God expects of us and what HE promises to do for us when we keep our covenants and we tied it all in to being good sports at the race.

They got big laughs from that AND we did have a "Covenant Keeper" Trophy for the best sport who ended up being Elder Christensen who had made a pickle car that looked great but got limp over time and wouldn't go down that track so he just ate it and didn't pout!! SO FUNNY.

I think the point of this letter is that God wants us to Work Hard (Even in the Rain)

And play hard (even when sad things happen)

and have JOY through Christ in all of it. Being close to Jesus is NOT just a Sunday thing. We can be close to Jesus when we work, including Him in our problem solving and daily tasks. We can be close to Jesus as we play by using play as an opportunity to bond with our fellow earthlings, love them, and grow in skill and competence with them. Have a wonderful week. We love you.

There and Back Again: Week 69 This Blog Written by Elder Cullen!

The last weekend of February is here. We Cullens have the months of March and April to complete our 18-month mission at the Illinois Historic Sites currently serving in Carthage as groundskeepers. We leave Nauvoo and Carthage on 11 May 2026 with a lot of unanswered questions. For example:

1. Do we visit Autumn and family in Knoxville,TN immediately after leaving Illinois? However, that would mean driving further east before setting our sights on the mountain west and Utah for a Cullen family reunion.

2. Do we try to visit the church historic sites in Winter Quarters after leaving Illinois? However, this means driving north of Kansas City where Ephraim plus Ben and family are living. We can't bypass KC on the way home but I don't want to drive north to Nebraska and then south to KC.

3. We must, I repeat MUST visit the 100-ft high mounds in Cahokia, Illinois (east of St. Louis, MO) before leaving the Great Plains of the American mid-west. We either make a side trip soon (please: someone fly into St. Louis to visit us so we can pick you up) or stop by on the way back from visiting Autumn in TN.

4. Do we buy some land in northern Missouri? At nearly 72-yrs I'm not sure I have the physcal strength nor the time to complete that dream. However, something calls me....

5. What do we do with our Windsor, CA home after our renter leaves in June? I mean, other than clean and reduce possessions: rent again, sell, or live out our lives at Oasis (this sounds like the easiest but as Arnold says "No pain, no gain.").

Reflecting on what I just wrote above it sounds more like journal entries that a mission blog. Also, it seems like the President Oaks concept of selecting the best from good and better will come into play; so stop your cryin' you big baby about having all these choices. It's more of a blessing to have the freedome and resources to make these decisions than worry about leaving something undone.

Also, unmentioned above is that the week after General Conference in April Sister Cullen and I will drive and spend a few days visiting my little seen Davis first cousins from Georgia. I feel a visit to the Cahokia Mounds during the front or tail end of that trip in extreme order.

A true mission item: our beloved Mission President Mehr (you know; little Danny who decades ago was in Grandma Maurine Perona's seminary class in Pleasant Hill) recently returned from a week-long conference in Utah. Pres. Mehr related the delight in meeting one-on-one with apostle Elder Soares and Bednar speaking very frankly about how to make this Illinois Historic Sites mission exceedingly successful. Pres. Mehr related two messages to we senior missionaries: Pres. Mehr needs to love us and that we seniors need to be more active in bearing testimonies.

i have learned much about church history in Nauvoo and Carthage and it has been very special to learn weekly from church historians in a BYU Education Week-like structure. I've learned to love our Savoir Jesus Christ for the atoning sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemene. I've learned to appreciate the prophet and the man Joseph Smith. I've developed a deeper appreciation about the Book of Mormon as a sacred and ancient record written to convince all Jesus is Christ.

Farewell! I hope we see one another soon.

There and Back Again: Week 68: Another Day Another Dollar

Elder Cullen and I took TWO truck loads of leaves to the burn pile JUST from under the hedges. The winter winds compact them there. We were very surprised.

Even after all our raking under the hedges there are STILL a lot of leaves jammed in the tangled branches deep inside. As I was raking out into the open, I raked out a dollar!! We got such a laugh over that. Maybe there was more? It didn't look too weathered. How and when did it get there?

We accepted it as a gift from God for our efforts. Small and simple and gave us a laugh. I'll take it. I'd take that dollar over the adventure I had cleaning a living room this week. I looked up and saw this...

This was a vent I had started cleaning a YEAR ago and reported when I discovered that stuff was mold. They had a specialist come out who determined it wasn't "black" mold and supposedly they cleaned the vent. After a year out here, I can tell you people out here including the professionals are rather lax. It's gotten me into some controversial situations as I push back hard when stuff like this isn't taken seriously. When I mean seriously, I mean DO something about it, not just say how serious it is and make everyone go out.

That vent looked like how I had left it a year ago when they ordered us all out of the house until it was taken care of. I unscrewed it from it's bracket and brought it down...OH MY.

I was wearing an N95 and gloves this time. I inspected the vent too.

Luckily the "not black mold" black mold was only on the frame and not up into the vent. This is a living room mind you. Where is the moisture coming from?

We deep cleaned and soaked in bleach. That is the only way to REALLY clean something, anything. DECLUTTER (take all visible stuff off), WASH (with warm water and soap), SANITIZE (with bleach), AIR DRY or wipe with clean paper towels changing them out often so as not to recontaminate.

Pick anything that needs to be cleaned...a dish....scrape off all visable food (look between the tines of a fork, or the edges around a pan or it's handle), it looks clean, but it's not. Then wash with hot water and soap. It looks clean but it's not. Sanitize with a super hot water rinse and a tad of bleach and let air dry.

If you leave even a speck of mold it will GROW back. It makes me think of the scripture, "NO Unclean thing can enter into heaven". By small and simple things GREAT things are brought about. This tree was a seed...now it's wrecking the shed...small and simple left to itself is now bringing down the roof!

Is that why? If you have even a speck of loving sin...just a little...it will grow? Thank Heaven for the sanitizing effects of the Atonement! We had the fun of a bunch of us going to see the movie "Solo Mio" at a local theatre. Word spread and a ton of us showed up.

Silly but true. So fun to be in a theater full of your friends.

At my dietician appoint I saw this sign on the bookshelf. I thought it MOST appropriate. Last week I weighed in and was 5 pounds less than I was at New Years....at least it's the right direction. I'm not looking back.

during our walk today I decided to bring the kangaroo and a picker stick. Elder Cullen brought his trash picker too. This is how much trash we brought back!!! WOW. I was figuring on half that. We even found a used, tightly wrapped baby diaper on the road...wah! OK so that's all for this week. We hope you are all well. We love you. Help the world to be a cleaner place.