Nauvoo

I am so far behind in my blogging! So this is going to be several posts at once. So...get a drink...sit back and enjoy!

This is Blaine's favorite statue we saw! It is of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum as they rode off together to Carthage jail where they would be murdered by a mob.

We were trying to think of something to do for our 30th anniversary. We hunted and looked on the internet for last minute deals and found a good deal on some last minute plane tickets to St. Louis, Missouri so we booked them. We flew to St. Louis on Friday night.

St Louis was cool. It is so green there. St. Louis is also about 180 miles from Nauvoo so we went there on Saturday. We went to the temple Saturday evening and were in the last session of the day and got a private tour of the temple from one of the workers! It was awesome!

Sunday we got up and went to church with all the missionaries who are serving in Nauvoo. There were over 400 missionaries! They had 34...(yes 34!) men administering the sacrament! They had the small table in the front of the chapel with the young Elders and then had three banquet tables set up in the back with the older missionaries doing the rest of the sacrament. They were very efficient and it was done in no time!

Late Saturday night I had a kidney stone and passed it sometime Sunday morning. So Sunday was our "slow" day and we just hung out and did a lot of the sites around Nauvoo. It was so peaceful!

One of the sunstones from the original Nauvoo temple. It is outside the visitor's center. There is also one in the Smithsonian Museum.

We went to Carthage also. It's about 30 miles from Nauvoo. They have a visitor's center there with tours of the jail. It was very somber to hear the story of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum. Below is a picture of the jail. The upper window is the window that Joseph fell from after being shot. He was shot from below then shot again from behind pushing him out the window. When he landed on the ground below, the mob propped him up against the well and shot him again.

Next is the room upstairs where Joseph, Hyrum, John Taylor and Willard Richards were. Between 150-200 men mobbed the jail. Hyrum tried to keep the door from opening and you can see where a bullet was shot through the door hitting and killing Hyrum. The bullet hole has been worn smooth from people touching it.

Looking out the window to the ground below. This is the window Joseph fell from.

It rained most of the time we were there and was so humid I thought I was going to die! It was so green and beautiful though it made it worth it.

The graves of Hyrum, Joseph and Emma Smith at the Smith Family Cemetery near the Smith Homestead in Nauvoo.

The St. Louis temple was just as beautiful.

Besides grandkids, I love to take pictures of old barns. We were driving around between Illinois, Missouri and Iowa and this was about the only barn I could talk Blaine into stopping and letting me take pictures.

Sunset on the Mississippi River.

Beautiful