On Friday, July 17th, we headed North to Nauvoo, Illinois. For those not of our faith, Nauvoo is a very important place in our Church's History. It is where ancestors on both sides of our family settled after hearing the gospel in Europe. They were part of the community there and helped to build a beautiful Temple. Unfortunately after the LDS people were forced out of the state, the Temple caught fire and burnt to the ground. In recent years, it has been rebuilt-as identical as possible to the original-with some modern upgrades, of course! :)
It is beautiful inside and out! Mom, Spence and I were all able to go inside and participate in some work there. What a blessing!
Below is one of the last remaining Original Sunstones from the 1st temple in Nauvoo. It is encased in glass outside of the Visitors Center.
Katelyn and Ian loved this statue of Christ. Ian wanted to climb up and give Him a hug! So nice to know that they love Jesus!
One of our favorite areas in Nauvoo was called "Pioneer Pastimes". They had dress up clothes, schoolhouse, a home, toys, and games all from that era. Below are pictures of the kids having quite a time together!
This was a favorite! Here is Katelyn and Emily playing toss the ring. They hold two wooden dowels and pull them apart to send the ring flying for the other person to catch with their wooden dowels. Very Fun!!
Another Area that was fun was the 'Family Living Center'. Inside, you learned things like how to make candles, bread, quilts, rope, pottery etc..
Here is Erin helping to make some rope! Below we are leaving with Erin's rope in hand! Everyone also got their own little candle to take home.
In the lobby of our hotel, we met a man who had just retired from teaching at the University of AR at Fayetteville (being from AR, we were happy to meet him.) He is now an artist and was there to sell his orginal paintings of the Nauvoo temple.
The pictures below are pretty blurry, but I had to show you the pre pageant dancing we took part in. It was lots of Fun! And the Blonde boy in the picture below with Katelyn asked Emily to dance. So we had to tease that she has officially been 'asked' by a boy!
The pageant basically told the story of Nauvoo. Why people came from so far and what they did here in creating this beautiful city basically out of swampland. They used music and dancing. It was really neat!
As this kind of our family journal, I wanted to share some feelings I had. It was near the end of the performance and the narrator was talking to the audience. His wife calls from offstage asking what he's doing? He replies that he is talking to these wonderful people telling them about Nauvoo. She comes on stage and turns to the audience and says something like, "Well, I know you! This place is a part of you, too. You belong here!". The words hit me and I realized that they were true. This wasn't just a History. This was OUR family's history. Our grandparents came across the ocean, helped to build this city and walked it's streets, went on missions, died serving others, and built an amazing temple all because they believed that the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been restored to the Earth through a prophet of the Lord, Joseph Smith. They went through so much! I realized how blessed WE are because of the choices they made!
What a wonderful experience! It was so worth it to make it all happen!
1 comments:
Looks like so much fun. I would love to visit some of the church history, especially the Nauvoo Temple.
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