I went with 20 other people to Navuoo (and Carthage) to see the Pageant this weekend. Out of those 20, I had met 5 of them before. It was, in a word, an adventure.
1.Naps Are Good For the Soul
I often tell people "Get your rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything." I learned just how true that is. 4 of the 5 cars caravaned overnight across Iowa. Essentially, by the time the Pageant was over, I hadn't showered in 32 hours (of 90+ degree heat) and had slept only 6 of the previous 48 hours. Considering these and other grievances, my meltdown was fairly contained, albeit embarrassing. It took 4 (also tired) people to help me locate a ride back to the hotel, where I could finally shower and then collapse into a sleeping position. Which I did.
During the peak of my breakdown, Kyler and Beka were trying to think of the next line in "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief." That's something I sing (to myself) on a regular occasion, so I offered to help them out. My escorts followed as I began to sing. Then I noticed they abruptly dropped off, and I was singing a solo. After a couple of more lines, I realized they had stopped not because I was singing with some amazing power, but because I was singing the final lines of the song instead of the final lines of the verse. There's a line about halfway through the first verse that goes "I had not power to ask his name," and at the same musical point in the last verse, it goes, "He spake, and my poor name He named," so the confusion is understandable, right?
When I got back to the hotel, I turned the shower on, sat down, and started sobbing through the hymn, realizing how succinctly I was that wayfaring man of grief that day. (I had been a stranger, hungry, thirsty, in need of rest, [spiritually] beaten, and my friendship had been tried.) It completed the recovery process. Like Dorothy's shoes, it was something I had with me the whole time--I could have sang those verses to myself at any moment and felt better--but I was too spent to realize it.
2. Maps Are Good for the Road
The return caravans were smaller, as some people wanted to linger longer in Nauvoo. My caravan was first led by Mike, with his Garmin. At one point, it told him to turn right, but there was no road for his car to turn on to. Then he saw a road beneath the highway we were on that didn't appear on his GPS and he wanted to drive on it because he had never driven on a new road before. Once we made that pit stop, our car led with an atlas. Not only that, but because we had the atlas, we found a way to avoid the pesky I-35/I-80 interchange in Des Moines. It may be a long time before Josh and I will let Mike live that one down.
3. Planning Ahead Leaves No One Behind
Essentially, there wasn't a set itinerary to even deviate from and no one responsible for doing a head count (and accounting for missing heads if need be). Hence it feeling like a Youth Conference without adults. One example: I broke formation with my assigned caravan to go to the temple and had to wait until Tatiana's car arrived at the same place Erika's was in order to change into clean casual clothes. While it's my fault I didn't communicate clearly enough that I was walking away from the group to go change, I came back and found everyone gone. Which might not have been such a big deal, except I didn't know if the whole group had gone off together or if they had broken into splinter groups and gone separate ways, much less where any of them went. The refreshed feeling I had after the temple vanished as I sat on a bench outside the print shop. I probably would have cried right then and there, but the Nauvoo brass band drove by and cheered me up.
4. No Regrets
Even though I was exhausted, I chose to not take a cat nap in the morning when we arrived and enjoyed the morning instead. There was one point where all but 4 of us went back to the hotel to chill before dinner. That was when I had the most fun with my (sister's) camera, which is my favorite part of road trips, anyway. I made plenty of choices throughout the weekend, and I have yet to regret any of them. Even not napping on the way there gave me the opportunity to have a nice conversation with someone.
About the only regret I have is not cleaning out the camera's memory card before I left; it filled up while I was there, which limited the fun I could have with it.
5. Things Are Not Always as They Seem
It might not sound like I had a good time, but I did. I truly had a wonderful time in Nauvoo and look forward to going back, making sure to apply these lessons, especially.
The sister who gave our group a tour of Carthage gave a talk on Sunday morning, but I really remember the sister who spoke after she did. In the Book of Mormon, Laman and Lemuel are heralded as being disobedient, but if we take upon ourselves the challenge to list the ways they were obedient, we will probably be surprised. (Now, I'm not saying they were righteous, but they were obedient at least sometimes.)
I spent most of Sunday sitting next to a guy wearing a Cheeto's t-shirt. He informed me he doesn't really like Cheeto's.
No comments:
Post a Comment