Saturday: We started out by eating breakfast at Grandpa John’s Café. And went straight to do a session in the BEAUTIFUL Nauvoo Temple. I know I’m a little biased because I served my mission there and all, and I went to the Nauvoo temple EVERY WEEK, but seriously, it really IS the most beautiful temple. Dave loved it too
We took the Wagon ride to get a good overview of the layout of the city and then popped in on my mission president an his wife. We LOVE the Ludwigs, and I’m fairly certain they love Dave :)
We toured the FLC (Family Living Center), the Bakery, the Blacksmith, and Brigham Young home before we headed into the air-conditioned NVC (Nauvoo Visitor Center-should I stop with all the abbreviations? :) for “High Hopes and River Boats”. I tried my utmost not to sing along.
Of course a trip to Nauvoo is not complete without dining at Hotel Nauvoo. No joke, it is the BEST food in town. Dave and I felt like Bob Wiley chowin’ down on Faye Marvin’s hand-shucked corn.
That night it rained, so we watched “Sunset on the Mississippi” inside L, oh well, you win some, you loose some.
We turned in early but not without switching between some “Everybody Loves Raymond” reruns and X-men 2 (thankfully it was on the TV to prep us for X-Men First class!).
Sunday:
This is SO embarrassing, but we missed church! Those extra dependable cell phone alarms just didn’t come through. And because church is at 8:00am in Nauvoo we naturally did not wake up of our own accord to get there on time. However, we made up for it by going to the Carthage Jail. I LOVE Carthage. I was trained there, I trained two sisters there, AND served there right before I went to New Jersey. Needless to say it has a special place in my heart
Dave, in spite of being warned to keep quite and not be a smart aleck, insisted on asking the sister where the bloodstain is.
Let me take a moment to clarify right now:
1)No one can prove that the dark spot in the Martyrdom room is actually blood. It could be ink or any other liquid substance. Further more, it is unlikely with all the blood being spilt in that room that day that only one spot would remain, and we certainly can’t prove that if it was blood, and if it was from that fateful day, that it would be Joseph Smith’s blood.
2)The floor plank with the dark stain was removed from the Jail in the 1980’s people! It hasn’t been there for almost 30 years! Visitors were so obsessed with “the blood stain” when they came to Carthage that they were distracted from the spirit in the room. Consequently President Kimball said this, “We’ve mourned over a stain long enough, let’s have it removed.” The entire plank is gone, it’s in church archives.
So next time you visit Carthage, don’t go looking for it. Don’t bend down and proudly exclaim, “I think I see it!” In fact don’t bother the poor sister who gave you the tour with questions about the bloodstain, I can assure you that she, just like we did when I was there, keeps a running tally of how many times she gets asked that question J
The rest of the day was full of more homes and sites. My favorite is always the Heber C. Kimball home. We found the Johnston’s serving there, they were there as a senior couple when I was there! Dave’s favorite was the Browning Gun Home. Yes, that’s the home of THE Jonathon Browning.
In the evening we went to a fireside where Susan Easton Black spoke about the SL Temple and Nauvoo Temple being bookends. After that, in true Nauvoo fashion we went to the Ludwig’s for an ice cream social. I was only somewhat self conscious that this was what we did every Sunday night on my mission. Dave commented about how he tracted J in the rain.
Alright Dave, you promised me you’d do St. Louis if I did Sat and Sun of Nauvoo. She’s all yours …
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