Day 3: Saturday June 19th, 2010

Saturday morning mom took Katie to the temple do Baptisms for the first time. It was a beautiful morning with almost no sign of the storm the night before. It was easy to see why the Saints loved Nauvoo so much. It was breath taking in the morning with a beautiful sun rise and it's rays glimmering on the Mississippi.

Elizabeth and I took a horse drawn buggy ride around the county portion of Nauvoo, we stopped at a meadow with a river running through it, the sun shining softly through the trees (reminded me of the Sacred Grove) and our tour guide had us sing the "Spirit of God" it was a pretty cool experience.

Afterwards we went on an oxen ride which was pretty cool.

Then we went on a tour of the Joseph Smith homes. We also went to the grave yard where many members of the Smith family were buried. This is the headstone of Joseph, Emma and Hyrum. After Joseph death Emma had to continual rebury they bodies because of mobs coming to look for them to desecrate them. Good to know they now have a resting place now.

Joseph's original home was the wood one. The addition was made by his son who was the founder of the Community of Christ Church.

This is the room where the Relief Society was organized. Hard to believe one of the worlds largest women's groups was started here.

We left Nauvoo around Noon and headed south to Independence Missouri. After a 5 hour drive we came to the Independence visitors center which we all really loved. We had a great sister missionary show us around and give us some insight into what the saints life was like in Clay county Missouri. Its hard to believe all the persecution these poor people faced. They are an inspiration to me and my small sacrifices and obstacles.

Second Christus statue of the trip. I love this one the most because it is suppose to represent the Second Coming. I love the background of it. How bright and beautiful the sky is. I hope it will be this great and glorious for me when he comes and not dark and dreadful.

Across the street from the visitors center is the Community of Christ temple. We were late getting there so we missed the tour. It would have been interesting though.

From there we drove 25 min north to Liberty jail where Joseph and a few others were held with out just cause for about 6 months. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The spirit was so incredibly strong here.

This is a replica of what the jail would have been like. Dark, small, cold and miserable.

At one point in the tour they sat us down and turned off the lights so that the only light was that coming from the candle at Joseph's desk. The you heard him say...

"O GOD, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?

How long shall thy hand be stayed, and thine eye, yea thy pure eye, behold from the eternal heavens the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants, and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?"

Then you heard this powerful voice coming from above you and you really felt the voice of the Lord say...

"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment; And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee;... Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever."

It was a great experience and fun to share it with my sisters and mom. That night we had some excitement. We got kicked out of our dirty hotel for complaining about how gross it was (which we were REALLY HAPPY about.) So we figured we would just go somewhere else. There was a Hampton we liked close to the freeway. Well they were booked. So we decided to drive an hour north away from Kansas city and stay they night there. So when we got to St Joseph we went to a hotel and found out that all the hotels in the area were booked. Apparently the College Baseball world series was going on in Omaha NE and all the rooms with in HOURS of there were booked. Mean while another WICKED storm was about to hit and we didn't have a room to stay and weren't sure we would, not to mention it was 11:30 at night. Then that hotel got a call that the hotel down the street just had a cancellation and that they had an open room. We jumped on it and went to the hotel. Just as we got into the hotel the storm hit and it was even worse than the night before. It was just another tender mercy to us that the Lord was watching over us. If that room hadn't opened up we would have been driving in an awful storm with no where to stay. How blessed we were.