Nauvoo fun.

We got up the next morning in Nauvoo and went around to all of the old and restored homes in the original Nauvoo. The kids loved going to see how they made bricks over 150 years ago and then getting to pick out a brick that was made in the same process. Everyone also got a praire diamond. A praire diamond is really a horseshoe nail bent into a circle to make a ring. As young men and women became engaged but didn’t have rings on the trail from Nauvoo to Salt Lake they realized that a horseshoe nail looked a lot like a big diamond…

The Saints lived in Nauvoo for seven years turning a swamp into a beautiful city full of growth, happiness, and good. The time there ended with the people of Illinios forcing the Saints from Illinios. Similar things happened in the state of Missouri seven years earlier where the governor of the state issued an order saying that anyone who saw a Mormon could shoot them on sight. So interesting for a land that was founded on the premise of religious freedom. The Saints were persecuted endlessly and had to cross the plains during a terrible time of year leaving Nauvoo to head west. After the Saints left their beautiful city the temple that they had built with their own hands was burned to the ground by mobs.

We also visited Carthage, Illinois. Eighteen months before the Saints left Nauvoo Joseph Smith was killed by similar mobs because of his testimony of Jesus Christ.

It was so fun for the kids to see what school was like for the pionner children in Nauvoo, a candy store, a post office, a printing shop (where they printed the newspaper…ohmiheck! What a tedious job. And you better hope you don’t trip once all of that work is done!), and the beds they slept in. Emmett kept commenting on how small and steep all of the stairs were. Emma loved a lamp with crystals hanging from it, and the girls all bought bonnets so they could look like pioneer girls and Emmett got a straw hat that pionner boys used to wear.

Nauvoo is a wonderful place. We’ve had such a great trip being able to visit all of these places full of history and miracles.

fun. LIFE.