Kade's idea of conflict resolution

Kade came in my room and told me that Baylee wouldn't share the popcorn with him. So I told him to think about it and figure out a solution, it wasn't something I needed to take care of. His solution.... He told Bay there was a huge spider in the kitchen. When she went to see the spider he grabbed the popcorn and ran outside. I thought it was pretty resourceful, hehe :)

Getting Home!

We made it to St. Louis airport about 2:00 pm on the 21st after visiting Carthage. Our flight wasn't until 6:00 and there were 5 other people on that flight from our tour. Two ladies, Jennifer and Janell Wagner, were from Vegas too. Austin, Mishawn, and Katie all live in Phoenix (which is were we had to switch planes). Well a huge storm moved in over St. Louis and shut down the airport for a couple hours, so our plane was late leaving which meant we missed our flight out of Phoenix. The soonest we could get another flight was not until Thursday morning, and we had waited long enough to see our kids! So we decided to rent a car and drive home from Phoenix. Jennifer and Janell both had to work Thursday so they needed to get home as well. So the 4 of us rented a car at about 10:30 at night and headed home. We pulled in our driveway at 3:30 Thursday morning. Travis drove the entire way. Scary thing is, he doesn't remember anything past Hoover Dam! We had gotten up at 6:30 in Nauvoo (their time zone, whatever it is!) so by the time we got home we had been up 23 hours. Never in my life has my bed felt so good!

Day 12- Carthage Jail

Joseph and Hyrum sacrificed everything for this church, even their own lives. After spending the last 11 days learning about Joseph's life, Carthage was pretty hard to be at. I don't know what to say to convey the feeling of love, loss, sadness, gratefulness, and a little anger at that mob who killed him. Just like so many other places we visited on this trip, it's hard to express the feelings in my heart for this Prophet. I can truly understand how the saints were willing to follow him anywhere. And why Heavenly Father chose him to restore the gospel on the earth in this dispensation. Praise to the Man

Day 11- More Nauvoo

This morning we walked down Parley Street, it's the same street the saints walked down when they left Nauvoo. It was amazing to me to hear the stories of these faithful saints leaving everything they had worked so hard for in Nauvoo, and leaving happy.

Our good friends the Lewis's were on vacation and happened to be at the Nauvoo Pageant the same night we were there.

The Nauvoo Pageant was our favorite!!

We are even thinking about going to be in it next year :)

Day 10- Touring Nauvoo.... in some serious rain!

This morning we had the opportunity to go to the Nauvoo temple and do a session. It was a great experience! When we came out, it was pouring!!! There has been a severe thunderstorm warning all day but that didn't slow us down any :)

This is the stone quarry site for the stone used in the original temple. Norm, our wonderful tour guide has a van from the hotel that he drove around town all day just picking people up and dropping them off. On our last pick up with him he took us here to see where the stone had come from.

One of the restored homes here is the Browning home. I didn't even know he was mormon lol!

This afternoon we went to the visitors center and was a movie about Joseph then say a play put on by performing missionaries about the Nauvoo saints.

Day 9- Moving West

Far West Temple Site. In D&C 118 Joseph received the revelation that the 12 apostles were supposed to leave from this site on missions on April 26, 1839. From the time he received this revelation and that time though Joseph was betrayed and taken captive to Liberty Jail and the saints were forced to evacuate Far West in January. Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball headed back to Far West to fulfill that prophecy in the beginning of April. On April 6th they past Joseph Smith and Hyrum because they had been allowed to escape Liberty Jail. Also at Far West the churches official name was changed to what it is today. And also the law of the tithe was changed to 1/10th instead of "all you had".

Adam-Ondi-Ahman, what a glorious place!! There is no visitor's center, no cute little couple missionaries sharing stories and doing tours. Just an incredible spirit that testifies to the importance and sacredness of this place. Unless you have got to experience this place it is really hard to describe it.

We made it to Nauvoo! This statue is across the street from the Nauvoo temple. It is of Joseph and Hyrum and they are preparing to leave and go to Carthage. And the two people in the picture with Travis are a couple of our wonderful friends we have made on our trip, Levier and Linda Gardner.

We went to see the temple at sunset last night. What a glorious building this is! I can't even imagine how the saints were able to leave it after all the work they had put into it. Travis took a ton of pictures, and finally got this one with the light just perfect. They "spared no expense" as President Hinckley put it into this temple to make it as much like the original as possible. One interesting thing we learned was that the architects told Joseph there wasn't any way to do the round windows, it just wasn't safe or going to be strong enough. But he insisted because that is exactly what he had seen in the vision of this temple.

Day 8- St. Louis to Independence

We started off today by going to see the St. Louis Temple. One more of the beautiful Lord's Houses here on the earth today!

This is the court house is Independence Missouri. At this courthouse about 400-500 local men met to decide what to do about the mormons that were "taking over" Independence. They had several problems with the mormons. #1 Missouri was a slave state and the mormons were largely against slavery. #2 About 1200 mormons had moved into Independence and they were about to out number the locals and they would be able to take over the voting with the majority. #3 The Sante Fe Trail and Oregon Trail both begin in Independence and the mormons were taking the trade business with the people heading west. #4 That doesn't even begin to talk about the religious differences!

So they met together and wrote a secret declaration to get all the mormons out of Independence. They sent a group of men to talk to the mormon leaders and told them they had to leave. The mormons asked for 90 days, they were told no, they asked for 10 days, they were told no they needed to be gone in 15 minutes. The men returned to the courthouse and, in anger went across the street to WW Phelps print shop and destroyed his printer and burned everything. Miraculously, 2 brave little girls grabbed the book that was being printed at the time and ran into the adjoining corn field and hid from the mob of men destroying everything in the print shop. The men never found the girls and they saved the first copy of the Book of Commandments (except for the last page). It was the first copy of what would later be known as the Doctrine And Covenants.

In sharp difference from the temple we started our day at, we next went to the temple that belongs to the Community of Christ Church (formerly RLDS). It is dedicated to Peace which Travis found very interesting :) They showed us a video of their churches basic doctrines and it was kind of strange. They begin with our same history, talking about Joseph Smith and the trials the early saints went through. But then they show things like a mom baptizing her child. And in the first presidency of their church and their quorum of the 12 there are women. We have had an opportunity to learn alot about their church on this trip though and it has been very interesting. They are kind, open people and very accepting it seems of our religion.

This is Liberty Jail, it is a very moving place to visit. Joseph and 5 other men were unjustly imprisoned here from December 1838 to April 1839. The dungeon where they were kept was about 14x14 and a little less than 6 feet tall. Most of the men could not stand up straight. It was dirty, they were treated very poorly and I think the worst part was that they had no right to hold them. Some wonderful revelations came from this trial is Joseph's life though. It is a good reminder that none of us has suffered anything in comparison with what he suffered for this gospel. Because of the revelations that were received here, this place is actually referred to as the "prison temple" though.

This is a very humbling place to see.