Nauvoo: A Beautiful Place

Continuing on our church history tour, Tyler and I spent a weekend in Nauvoo, IL. This is the first church history site that Tyler and I have done together that I have actually been to before. Of course, it was nearly 15 years and I don't remember a lot, but it was fun to see things that I did remember and to re-live old, happy memories. I remembered the Nauvoo bricks, the blacksmith, the temple foundations (which are now gone due to the beautiful temple in its place), and the Relief Society garden.

We also made sure to take a tour of the Heber C. Kimball house, which was VERY nice, and to stop by Alpheus Gifford's (my only pioneer ancestor) plot of land right on the Mississippi. It was Tyler's first time seeing the Mississippi and he made sure to walk down the bank and touch it. [Luckily, there was no railroad running through Nauvoo and he didn't get stuck on a moving train car in his attempt :D]

Tyler and I both agreed that our favorite part of the trip was attending the temple- it was sooooo beautiful inside! However, I also really liked the oxen ride. (FYI: Though oxen like Duke & Don pictured above are extremely rare in the U.S., they are the most widely used work animal worldwide.)

Tyler & I also found the Trail of Hope quite moving- it's hard to explain the feeling of looking back at that gorgeous temple on the hill and wondering how the pioneers must have felt as they left Nauvoo forever.

If you ask nicely I might tell you how I got the amazing reflection in this photo when there is no reflection pool at the temple.

For some reason I just love the entrance to this temple.

My favorite photo of the trip. The statues represent Joseph & Hyrum Smith.

On our drive back to Chicago we also stopped in at Carthage Jail. I remembered the bedroom door vividly, but some of the stories of what happened there leading up to the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum I had no recollection of. Overall, we loved hearing new stories and seeing the sites together.

Please note: I couldn't decide which photos to post from out trip because I loved them all, so sorry for the slight visual overload in this post. Also, our camera was nearly dead by the time we arrived in Carthage and I wasn't really able to see what I was capturing when I turned the camera on, clicked, and turned it off as fast as I could so I'm pretty happy with the way this last one turned out!