Nauvoo Day #2

These horses names are Bill and Bob

After the storm the night before, the kids slept in until about 8:30! The boys are always up by 7am. I went for a three mile run through Nauvoo (another great way to see Nauvoo), then Jeremy went for a run. After breakfast, we said goodbye temporarily to Nana and Pappy as they left for her cousin's home. We spent the morning going on a wonderful carriage ride through these beautiful fields in Nauvoo and hearing stories of faithful saints and of our sweet prophet, Joseph Smith.      
We all felt the spirit very strongly on this carriage ride. We stopped in a little spot called Dan Jone's Hollow that was named by the missionaries and sang I am  Child of God. Very tender. The Lord loves each of us and blesses us with people in our lives to help us get through the hard times and to have find enjoyment with. Joseph Smith was blessed with these wonderful people in his life, including his older brother Hyrum. I hope my boys and my girls can love each other like Hyrum and Joseph did. I know I am so grateful for my brothers and sisters. I don't know what I'd do without them. I truly hope my kids will remember this trip and the way they felt as they learned more about this era in church history.

 

After the carriage ride, we hopped into the RV and drove down to the river on Parley St where we saw the monument to the saints who left Nauvoo, but didn't make it all the way to the Salt Lake Valley. I can't believe they only had three weeks to prepare in the middle of winter. What faith they had. And trust in God that "all is well."

Our "prairie" diamonds from the Blacksmith

We stopped in at a little cafe that served waffles with frozen custard on them. They were so yummy!

Pioneer Monument at the end of Parley Street

  

The Blacksmith was a dentist by trade and showed us how to make a tiny little horseshoe that he gave to Cozette. Wyatt was in the oxen stock. Apparently, when you try to shoe oxen, they will lay down and make it highly difficult to put shoes on them.

On to Carthage. The most spiritual place yet...

We were able to get one of the last tours of the day since all the missionaries were attending a special meeting with Elder Ballard. Our sweet sister that took us through Carthage Jail had such a strong testimony and sweet spirit about her. I don't know how people got out of their without feeling the love of our Heavenly Father and feeling like He truly is in the details of our lives. I'm so glad we didn't miss Carthage. I have been to all these sites before, but it's been a long time. I didn't really think about the affect they would have on me but also on Jeremy who has never been to them. He got up today, on Fast Sunday, and bore his sweet testimony of the prophet Joseph in the little branch we attended here in Detroit. I was very touched and thankful to see this growth in him (not that there needed to be a change). He is a good tender man. I'm so thankful that he would even want to be on a three week trip with his family. We are so lucky and blessed to have a wonderful man leading our home.

Our little family at Carthage

   

I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. We have a true prophet who leads us today, Thomas S. Monson. He is the prophet not just for our church, but for the world. I hope people who read this will find these things out for themselves. If they pray and ask, they can know of the truth. That is how I learned for myself.

Nauvoo- Beautiful City

We LOVED Nauvoo!! We got into Nauvoo right at sunset where we met my parents for a quick dinner and ran up (literally) to the outdoor stage and got to see BYU's Vocal Point. They were so fun and it was nice to have some great entertainment after a lot of driving! We enjoyed Independence and the start of our church history tour there. We worked our way through Missouri, stopping to look at Far West where the saints laid cornerstones for a temple but were not able to build one due to so much persecution. We then went to Adam-Ondi-Ahman and loved walking around there and seeing more corn and soy fields.
 

This is a rebuild of Liberty Jail. Joseph Smith was in here for four and half months and endured so much grief and struggle in there. I love the revelations he received in there, especially Doctrine and Covenants 12:7-8 which says, "My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes."  We all will have adversity and for me, this day, was my adversity. Satan was really working hard on me to be grumpy and moody to ruin the spirit we all felt at these wonderful sites. I'm so thankful for prayer and thankful I didn't ruin anything by my hormones and icky feelings that I was fighting. Heavenly Father is so loving and hears my prayers. That's the only way I was able to get through it. 

These pictures are from Adam-ondi-Ahman. Such a beautiful place.

    

BYU Vocal Point #byuvocalpoint was awesome!! I especially loved their medley of songs from Newsies. We found out one of them is cousins with my Flake cousins in Snowflake.
We saw lightning bugs in Nauvoo as we were watching the concert. Then we found our campsite about a mile away from Nauvoo and slept really well.

           

The kids loved riding around Nauvoo in the back of Pappy's truck! You won't see that in California. I know I'm skipping a lot of details, but for sack of not staying up until midnight, I am giving the abbreviated versions. But I do want to say that just pulling into Nauvoo, we felt the spirit immediatly. It reminded me of being on campus at BYU. We had an appointment on Thursday morning to do baptisms for the dead at the Nauvoo temple. When I came to Nauvoo about 22 years ago, when I was 14, the temple was not there and so were most of the other things to do. The baptisms were special because they were for family names that I found on my Mother in laws side. Cozette was also able to get baptized and confirmed for Nancy's aunt. We all wept when that took place and felt that she was very happy with this work. I'm so thankful to be able to do that with our kids. Even though the boys didn't get to come in, they were outside waiting for us and looking forward for the day they are old enough to go in and help do work for the dead.

Here are some of the activities we got to do in Nauvoo after we rented some bikes. That was the best way to get around even though it was hot! We went to Lucy Mack Smith's home, the Brickyard, Mansion House and Cemetery, Pioneer living center where we got to make rope, eat bread, learn how to dip candles and make barrels.   When then went to the visitor's center and watched "The Promise."

Scotty was in the kids parade during Sunset on the Mississippi. All the shows were put on by the Young Performing Missionaries and they were soooo good! The show we loved was called The Promise. These young adults were amazing and truly carried the spirit with them. I did not have dry eyes at the end and even talking to sweet Sister Speakman afterward, I could barely talk. 

              
Our biker gang cracked me up, especially when Atalie was singing, "They see me rollin'..."

These missionaries were so fun! Even though some did not have experience doing things like being a blacksmith, they still gave of their time and love and were willing to learn how to do those things to help educate all of us.

Wyatt's "poncho" for when it poured rain on us Thursday night. There was tons of lighting and thunder, huge rain drops and we even heard the lighting hit the ground! That scared me so badly!! But it was awesome. 

Scotty gets himself in the finniest sleeping positions! Jeremy even saved him from falling off the bed one night.