A couple weeks after Jon started his internship Jon's older brother Devan got married in the Nauvoo Temple. I felt extremely grateful when Devan's wife Nicole offered to let me go through the temple with her the week before the wedding. I was thrilled but as I began to think of the logistics of it all I was worried that I wouldn't be able to make it. As usual, I called my mom to just try and talk it out since I'd have to go alone. After I explained my situation my mom who was in the middle of teaching church history in seminary offered to go out with me and make a mini church history tour of it. I'll be honest I was pretty excited.
So I'll just give a quick run down of the events of the week. The closest airport is the St. Louis airport so we flew into St. Louis on Friday night and then drive to Nauvoo Saturday morning. The drive was absolutely beautiful. It was just so lush and green at that time like my mom said after seeing it you understand why they settled there and named it Nauvoo (Hebrew for "to be beautiful"). We were scheduled for the last session in the temple that night so after the drive we only had a couple minutes to sight see before we had to get to the temple. The Nauvoo temple is BEAUTIFUL!!! I was so taken back by the pure beauty of it all. If there's one temple I'd suggest traveling to that would definitely be one of them. It was a really great experience to be able to be with Nicole as we took her endowments out. Several people commented to me that she has a very special spirit and I can atest to that. She is a great girl and we're happy to have her as part of the family.
Since everything closes fairly early in Nauvoo we had to get started on the sight seeing the next day (Sunday). The church has done a really great job of maintaining and restoring Nauvoo. You're able to walk around the town and go into various buildings and get a little tour of the home or store from the missionaries that are there. I really enjoyed when the missionaries would go "off script" and just talk to us. I was really impressed by the testimony of one sister missionary in Brigham Young's house. It really just helped to build up the spirit that exists in Nauvoo and testifies of the truthfulness of the gospel.
While in Nauvoo we made the short trek up to Carthage Jail where Joseph Smith was killed. For me it was one of those experiences that you don't fully get where you are or whats going on until it's almost over. At the end of the tour you're taken into the room that Joseph was held in. While in the room they pay an audio recording which includes a man signing Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief (which Joseph asked to be sung to him just prior to his death). At that point you can't really help but be overcome by the spirit. For me probably one of the best parts of this little church history tour was to just hear my mother's knowledge of and testimony of the gospel. I'd never really talked about the gospel with her much. It was just so awesome to see her as the spiritual powerhouse she's become through teaching seminary.
On Monday after finishing up at Nauvoo we drove to Independence, Missouri. Along the way we made a stop for the night in a town next to an Amish Community. There were some cute stores and they had an auction that was fun to see. It was really fun to see the really little kids riding around in wagons and dressed in the typical Amish get up. Tuesday we continued toward independence but also made a pit stop in Adam-ondi-ahman. At some point we made a stop in at a book store that had a replica of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith's death mask. It was really interesting to see.
In Independence we were able to go to Liberty Jail and go to the Community of Christ Temple. Liberty Jail was interesting to see and since I know nothing about church history it really helped me out. The Community of Christ Temple was really interesting. It's really amusing to see how much their beliefs and teachings have deviated from that of the LDS church. It's quite the building that's for sure... We also made a drive by of the Missouri temple on our way out of town. It wasn't open yet but the exterior was almost entirely finished so it was still worth seeing.
On Wednesday after we finished up in Missouri we made our way back to St. Louis to spend the night before my mom left. On Thursday morning we had a couple hours to kill so we went and saw the St. Louis arch. My mom and I are both pretty afraid of heights but somehow my mom was courage and talked me into going up into the arch. Lets just say I have a little bit of an anxiety problem and I chickened out at the last minute... It was embarrassing I know but hey I was freaking out. My mom said it was cool though and worth it so if you have the opportunity you should do it... Just not me. Haha.
For some unknown reason we decided to get to the airport early for my mom... It was a total blessing that we did because without her knowledge she had been bumped to an earlier flight and made it just in time. After waiting at the airport for a couple hours Jon and his family made it into St Louis. After getting the rental car we drove up to Nauvoo. Since the wedding was on Saturday we had all day Friday to just relax and sight see. We were able to make it up to Carthage together but that was about it. The weather wasn't really in our favor that day. We were able to attend a play performed by the missionaries working in Nauvoo that night which helped to round off the day. The wedding was Saturday morning. It was really great. After the wedding they had a luncheon with immediate family and friends at a local Chinese restaurant. It was a lot of fun and I feel sorry for the guy that had to clean the cake out of the carpet... All in all it was a great trip and definitely worth going to. We're happy we could make. My and my mom are pretty bad a taking pictures so this is what Jon took while we were in Nauvoo...