"Beautiful place"...

Nauvoo is a hebrew word meaning beautiful place or situation. We were lucky and got to stop by Nauvoo on our way back from Indiana and I'm so glad we did. It's probably my favorite place Michael and I have ever gone together. If you haven't ever been, go if you get the chance. Its really a special place. The first thing e did was drive to the temple. We actually stumbled across it because we didn't really know where we were going, but we were driving at the end of main street and saw these black gates and thought maybe that was where the temple was, and as we came around that corner and the temple came into view, I just about started bawling it was so beautiful. Its amazing how good you feel just looking at the temple, wihtout even going inside. It was a great experience. We saw a lot of neat things on our trip. Our first stop was to the Visitor's Center to get tickets for the buggy ride we went on and the live matinee called "River boats and high hopes." It was a musical based on events that occured in Nauvoo around the time Joseph Smith was martyred. I LOVE the Christus statue that they have in the Visitor's Center so of course we got a couple pics of it.
This is an original sunstone that was hand-chiseled in solid stone. They are part of the Nauvoo temple, and symbolize the Celestial Kingdom.
This is what we've been doing a lot of lately; chasing Stetson
There were the most beautiful flowers in front of the Visitor's center.
I was a little excited about getting pictures in front of the flowers because they were "SOOOOOOO pretty." Really they were. :-)
This the quarry where men worked to get rocks for the temple from 1840-1845.
We took this pic because if you look close you can see the tip of the temple in the background. We took this on our way back from the quarry.
Probably one of our favorite things we got to do was go on a buggy ride. There were 2 men (both serving missions in Nauvoo) one to drive the team of horses and another who narrated and told stories about the places we saw. This is "inspiration point." The tour guide told us that this is where Joseph Smith would go to send off missionaries and greet returning ones, and that Joseph Smith would come here for inspiration. This is also one of the widest points of the Mississippi, approx. 2 miles across.
A close friend of Joseph Smith's, King Follett, died in a well accident, and it was from that experience that one of the greatest sermons in the history of the church was given--the King Follett discourse. They erected this well in memory of him.
When we came out of the visitor's center they had this band playing and I embarrassed Michael because I started dancing.
This is the seventies hall, which was used as a missionary training center and a chapel. We also got to go inside Lucy Mack's house but we didn't get pics of that. The houses looked big on the outside but were pretty small when you actually go in. A lot of the homes are owned by the Community of Christ church--if we'd had more time we would have done the tour thing so we could go inside.
journal excerpt from George Q. Cannon (my relative)
All of us in front of the Mississippi
Another picture of the Mississippi river. Pretty, huh?
Michael's only request when we got to Nauvoo was to walk down parley street. He remembered Pres. Hinckley mentioned in one of his talks that if you ever go to Nauvoo, you should walk down Parley street, so thats just what we did, and the feeling there was awesome. I've never been to a place so calm and peaceful. Down Parley street there's something called the "trail of hope" where they've displayed various people's journal excerpts including feeling they had about leaving Nauvoo.
This is the Mansion house, where Joseph Smith and his family lived for a time and where his body was brought after he was martyered. It was also used as a hotel for travelers.I almost forgot. We ran into some friends of mine from Santa Rosa, the Fredericks. L-R: Gail, Adella, Emily & Amber. Well that wraps up our Nauvoo trip. We got home last night about 9:30ish and it feels great to be home! We're excited to take off on Friday for the big wedding!