Nauvoo, Illinois

On the church website, where one can learn about all the things to do in Nauvoo, you will find a quote from Joseph Smith from the Times & Seasons, May 2, 1842.  It says “Generations yet unborn will dwell with peculiar delight upon the scenes that we have passed through, the privations that we have endured; the untiring zeal that we have manifested; the insurmountable difficulties that we have overcome in laying the foundation of a work that brought about the glory and blessings which they will realize.” 

There is just a spirit in Nauvoo that makes it a beloved place and it is likely for the reasons mentioned in this quote! We spent nearly a week “dwelling with peculiar delight” upon all the stories of Nauvoo.  We were served by the devoted full-time missionaries both young and old, the Nauvoo performing missionaries, the pageant cast, and the temple workers.  Our original plan had been to spend three days in Nauvoo but when it came time to leave the kids didn’t want to.  What could we say except let’s see if we can work it out to stay!  It turned out that it was an easy adjustment to make to the trip and the only thing we missed was David’s visit to the EAA AirVenture, an enormous Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-in Convention.  We figure we can come back and visit that some year in the future.  And, David didn’t really want to leave Nauvoo either.

We were in a bit of a rush to get to Nauvoo on the day we arrived because Myra and Will had an appointment to do baptisms at the Nauvoo temple at 6pm.  We made it with no problem.  Zina and I watched the old Disney movie of the 3 Musketeers while the others were at the temple.  We ordered pizza from the pizza place in Nauvoo and that turned out to be gas station pizza and it wasn’t that great but it was just too hot to cook in the trailer!

Wednesday we started our day with the wagon tour of Nauvoo that got us oriented to all the sites available to visit.  The wagon tour is right next to the Family Living Center where you can make rope, barrels, pretend bread, rag rugs, and candles plus learn about brick making and weaving.  We did most of those things. We visited the visitor’s center and listened to the Brass Band concert and picked up additional information.  On the wagon tour they said we could visit Pioneer Pastimes and dress up as pioneers. Zina was SO excited to dress up in pioneer clothes and play in the Pioneer Pastimes booth.  They have a little cabin where you can take care of baby dolls.  She was a very good mama!  We took turns hanging out with her and visiting the other trade homes around there.  We wanted to get to Carthage that day so took off about 3:30pm to make sure we got there before their last tour.  Carthage is such a thoughtful place.  Whenever I visit I can’t help wondering how it is possible that people hated Joseph Smith so much that they thought he needed to be killed!  I guess it follows that I wondered why the Saints needed to be driven from their homes and no law was able to protect them. We decided to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Carthage and the food was very good.  We were back to Nauvoo in time to head to the pre-pageant country fair.  There was so much to do there including dancing, games, stilts, quilting, listening to Bagpipes, etc.  Mostly the older kids danced and I followed Zina around.  She made herself a title of liberty on a stick at one of the booths.  At 8:30 we watched the British Pageant and it was fantastic of course.  

Thursday David and I had an appointment for an endowment session at 9:30am and thought we could catch the Trail of Hope vignettes performed by the performing missionaries along Parley Street at 8am.  It turned out that my cousin Anne’s daughter Chloe who is in the Core Cast for the pageant, was doing one of the vignettes.  We luck out in that someone in a golf cart offered us a ride back up Parley Street to our truck when we finished and we rushed off to our session.  We had lunch and then had tickets for the Carriage Ride, which heads out into the country instead of into town.  Elder Lowder was a great tour guide for our carriage ride.  When we got back we went to the nearby visitor’s center and saw the Remembering Nauvoo film.  Next on the agenda was visiting the Joseph & Emma Smith area with the newly acquired Mansion House, Homestead, and Red Brick Store.  While waiting for our tour we ran into the Blowers, friends and Zina’s Taekwondo teachers from Pullman.  Of course Zina was begging to go back to the Pioneer Pastimes.  We took turns hanging with her again and saw the Tinsmith, Gunsmith (Browning), and Blacksmith, procuring a horseshoe souvenir for the family.  We had dinner at Annie’s Custard (the fancier place was too crowded) and headed back to the pre-pageant fair where the kids danced more and played some stick ball.  It had been our intent to see the Nauvoo Pageant but the thunderstorms rolled in and the Pageant was cancelled.

We were supposed to leave Friday morning but it just didn’t seem the right thing to do so we changed the plan.  We didn’t get out very early but when we did we went to the oxen exhibit where an Elder Hunt gave us an excellent tour and a ride in an ox cart.  He had raised horses and cattle for his career and he was sad to be assigned to the oxen instead of the horses but he has totally changed his mind now.  He loves the oxen and it showed.  So, oxen are just trained cattle and they can do some amazing things.  They may be slow but they are very steady.  They are not actually pulling their loads, they push against the yoke and that pulls the load.  The Sarah Granger Kimball home was very nearby so we visited and learned about the beginning of the Relief Society.  Sarah was the daughter of Oliver Granger in the Book of Mormon.  When she came to Nauvoo she married a prosperous local man who was eventually baptized.  It was she and her seamstress who had the idea to start the Relief Society.  When she got out to Utah she was a suffragette and good friends with Susan B. Anthony.  We spent more time in the visitors center using their computers to find what relatives lived in Nauvoo, served missions, made the trek, etc.  We also took the opportunity to walk through the Women’s sculpture garden. We went back to the trailer for a bit of lunch.  Our final tour of the day were the homes of the temple designer–Brother Weeks, Edward Hunter, and the Ghean family.  This was called the Temple tour though we are not sure why.  Then I had to do laundry at the laundromat in downtown Nauvoo.  It was hot work so I went back to Annie’s for custard.  When I got home, David rushed the kids back to the county fair so they could do more dancing.  Then he came back and got Zina because she wanted to visit the fair too.  We had already seen the British pageant so they came home when the fair was over and we had a reasonably early night.  

Saturday morning was very rainy.  Will and I headed out for groceries at the Walmart Supercenter in Keokuk, IA about 20 minutes away.  It took us a while to get the shopping done because we kept running into senior missionaries that we wanted to talk to.  I REALLY wanted to see the performing missionary shows that day.  I rushed the family out of the trailer and we got the last five seats in the Sister in Zion show in the Cultural Hall (performing Sisters).  Then I rushed them over to the Seventies Hall and by “standing by” for about 40 minutes we got a standing room admission to the Spirit of God show (performing Elders).  Then we rushed to the Visitors Center to get in line for the Knowing Joseph show performed by all the performing missionaries together.  All the shows were just fabulous, the missionaries so talented! We ran home to eat breakfast for dinner and went back to the county fair where the kids were now quite familiar with the pioneer dances and we continued to have a great time.  I felt like just sitting at a nearby table but apparently you have to actually play the games at the table. I played checkers with one of the Family Pageant cast members turned out to be a guy from Coeur ‘d Alene whose wife made him do it along with their 20, 17, & 15 yo daughters. Between that guy and a lady on the rain out night, I found out that the family cast members come for two weeks.  The first week is crazy busy learning the show and running the county fair and the second week they have more free time and can visit the sites and do the Nauvoo activities themselves.  We watched the kids dance for a while.  I was just headed to the concession stand when I ran into my cousin Anne with her daughter.  She told me that her mom, Aunt Sandy was up in the seats so I skipped the concession line and went to find Aunt Sandy.  The Nauvoo Pageant was also excellent, so fun.  After the Pageant I took the family to say hi to Aunt Sandy.  David diligently searched out and took pictures of Myra’s pioneer crushes!

We really burned our candles at both ends. The Nauvoo Visitors Branch started Sunday School at 8am and Sacrament meeting at 9am.  That was just too early for Zina so the twins & I went to the early meeting and David and Zina just crashed the ward.  After that we rushed to do the last of the tours we hadn’t done, the homes of the Apostles, the Post Office, the Print Office, and John Taylor’s home (Joseph Smith made him move there so he could take care of the printing presses.)  It was quite hot again and it felt so good when we got to go into places!  I would have been a very wimpy pioneer!  In the middle of that we went to one last performance by the brass band and the performing missionaries, Love of the Savior, at the Visitors Center.  I did a griddle Salmon dinner.  As we were cleaning up from that another storm blew in cancelling the finale concert by the core pageant cast.  Chloe was to have a solo in that concert and we were hoping to see Anne and Aunt Sandy again but no luck.  The rain did stop and there was a beautiful sunset and we took the kids for a walk down Parley Street, the Trail of Hope.  No vignettes but still very moving to read all the placards.  In case you are wondering, we think it takes about a week to truly see Nauvoo!

Visiting Nauvoo makes me want to be more valiant in my testimony of Jesus Christ.  I hope I will not forget this very soon.