Nauvoo, IL

While some of my family was visiting  Ria, Mom and I went to Nauvoo, IL.  I have always been interested in going because it is only 5 hours from where we live now.  Mike isn't really into church history sites and so this was a perfect opportunity for us to go while they were here.  Mike offered to watch all 9 kids while we went, he is such a great guy.  I'm sure it was a crazy day for him.  We left at about 6 a.m. and didn't get home until like 11 p.m.  It was really cool to see.  Carthage jail was my favorite.  There was a very holy solemn feeling there.  Weird to think that he was Ria's age when he died.  Joseph Smith sacrificed so much to restore the church. He truly is "The Man."  The temple there was beautiful.  There was so much detail and it was interesting to think how much harder it would have been for them to build it with such limited tools etc.   We saw the house that Joseph and Emma lived in and it is owned by the Reorganized Church.  The feeling there was very strange.  I felt like I didn't belong there.  It was weird.  We saw where the people were run out of the town and had to cross the Missouri river.  What a hard thing that would have been, after they had worked so hard to build a community and homes there.  We saw how they made the wheels for the wagons and how they had to put shoes on the oxen.  It was such intricate work.  I would never have had the patience for it. We also saw a graveyard where most the peole buried there were children.  Woodrow Wilsons wife had to bury their 2 year old child there while he was gone serving a mission.  They were asked to sacrifice so much to build the church.  They were tough people and deserve to be remembered for what they did so we could have the gospel today.