Serving in Nauvoo: "Bootiful Nauvoo"

"Bootiful Nauvoo"

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday, but Nauvoo really knows how to do it up right. And they don't even do it on the actual date, they do it on the last Saturday in October.

First, missionaries donate candy and then help bag it up ahead of time. Then for the week before the big event, the mission greenhouse is turned into a giant pumpkin carving factory. There are some really amazing artists in town and they draw some simple and some more complicated designs on over 500 pumpkins and then missionaries and townspeople come for several days whenever they have a little "free time" to carve the pumpkins.

Then they loaded them all up on flatbed trucks.

Then someone spends all day Saturday lining the streets uptown with all the pumpkins.

Saturday night there were people selling food up and down the street but we gave away our previously bagged up candy . . .

. . . and the best tasting kettle corn in the entire universe.

Our Elders made it in a big pot right there on the street.

Then there was a parade - lots of kids and adults in costumes.

I loved the cute little train.

And Micky and Minnie.

And our very own missionary "crazy band".

But best of all were the pumpkins. They were everywhere. Pumpkins lined both sides of the street for several blocks. This is just a small sample.

We didn't have time to get around to all of them because we had a performance of Rendezvous afterward, but here's one that Elder K. carved - the Count from Sesame Street (on the left).

Besides the 500 plus pumpkins we helped to carve, the artists carved some special ones for an auction. I'm not sure what the auction was for, but the pumpkins were amazing.