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| Sunset from the temple looking over Joseph's last ride statue. Surprisingly, I took this picture. |
When I left for Nauvoo I had this idea in my mind that I would become the next Indiana Jones. Searching for unknown and very important artifacts...namely the Holy Grail. Fighting off the Germans or Russians or whatever country had it bad for Indy at the time. It was going to be a trip of epic proportions. And you know what? It really was. Although I didn't fight any bad guys, I definitely found my personal holy grail. I had loads of fun with some pretty amazing people.
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| Sarah took this photo. She's awesome. My bed is the third window on the right in the middle...until I moved to a safer place. |
Our group consisted of 10 undergrads in Geology, 2 geology grad students, 1 archaeology grad student, 1 geophysicist, his 2 daughters, 1 LDS church historian, a camera man (yes our trip was documented), his wife and our cook who was some number of greats grandson of Samuel Smith. The lead church historic guy from Community of Christ and one of their achaeologists were I guess you could say our bosses and supplied us with a place to stay and some great tours and work. We were extremely blessed. Anyone that goes to Nauvoo stands in front of the Nauvoo House wondering why they don't give tours...well I can tell you exactly why they don't. It's because these members of the Community of Christ have followed the words of Joseph Smith in D&C 124:23 in keeping the Nauvoo house "a house for boarding, a house that strangers may
come from afar to lodge therein; therefore let it be a good house,
worthy of all acceptation, that the weary traveler may find health and safety while he shall contemplate the word of the Lord". We were fortunate enough to stay in the Nauvoo house. It was amazing! Although us girls were a little creeped out at first that Emma Smith died in the room next to us (we chose not to sleep in that room haha), it turned out to be a place of rest. Sort of. For me, I have never been able to find more joy in the study of my scriptures. I truly felt the spirit as I studied and pondered upon the teachings of the prophets. Which has happened before, but not to the magnified beauty as in the Nauvoo house. If you haven't caught on already, this is going to be a very "I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ" post. Too many spiritual things happened on this trip and I plan to tell you about some of them. And the funny stories as well...because there are a myriad of those.
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| The girls' room. |
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| The boys' room or attic. |
So what exactly was I doing in Nauvoo? I was doing something called GPR or Ground penetrating radar. It's basically this cool little piece of equipment that you put in a stroller and push in a straight line across the ground. It sends out "light" (something like light) that reflects off of surfaces at different speeds depending on the materials porosity. We would make a perfect rectangle grid and take line measurements across the grid both long ways and short ways. Then all the data can be compiled into a 3D image. By looking at this image we could spot where anomalies existed. These anomalies were areas that contain less porous material than the soil and often times (we hope) the shape looks like the border of a box...or a foundation of a building! I wish I had an image from our trip, but I uploaded one from earlier research done in Nauvoo by John McBride and Ben Pykles (our geophysicist and church historian) so that you can see what it looks like. So after we find interesting things, the archaeologists take over and set up a test pit. We got to actually help with this part. A test pit is usually a 2ft length square. The ones on the Joseph smith house were 8ft length squares. We first had to roll up the sod and then dig down layers with a trowel. A layer was about 2 in. and sometimes our goal was 2 to 6 feet. Paul, the archaeologist from The Community of Christ would constantly tell us "More Dirt, faster!". Let's just say that when the days of digging ended we were all sore and tired. I am so glad I am a geologist. I was more interested in the rocks and fossils we found in the dirt than the artifacts. We did find some cool artifacts though. We mostly found nails, and shards of glass, but we did find a shell button, glass door knob, shoe buckle, and a lot of ceramic pieces, painted in beautiful colors. We also found a gravel sidewalk and foundations to buildings, woot woot! GPR works my friends! I found a bone when doing tests with a pole that you shove into the soil. It's basically a little core sample. I didn't know it was a bone at first so Paul told me to spit on it to clean it up. I was like...ok...I don't know how to spit...but I did it anyways and totally failed. But I did succeed at getting it cleaned after everyone laughed at my spit failure. And then I did the unthinkable, I licked it. Yeah...kind of gross, but it was definitely a bone. A bone is extremely porous so it sticks to your tongue and sucks out your liquids. That's the easiest way to tell if something is a bone. I actually don't know if it's the easiest way...but I did it anyway!
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| GPR equipment. Me pushing the stroller. |
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| GPR image from Nauvoo during a previous trip. The bright red area is probably a rubble filled cellar. |
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| Pulling up the sod in our test pit |
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| My awesome group. We found a gravel sidewalk probably from the 1950s. |
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| The glass doorknob. |
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| Me and the tiny bone I found. |
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| When you finish a level (2in) you have to map the area. It's so much fun as you can tell from my body language. |
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| Sifting the dirt. |
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| Artifacts found in a 2x2 test pit. |
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A sad and nice little thing about GPR is that it works best in Dry weather. So we couldn't work when it rained. It rained one of the days, so we decided to make it our temple day. That morning I went for a walk to see the red brick house and the temple on my own before we left to go do an endowment session and baptisms. This was my first time in Nauvoo and I learned a lot of church history. I had no idea what the red brick house was and I had no idea how important it is for our heritage. When I found out I needed to get a picture with it. First of all, the relief society was organized in the attic area/ meeting area. I am so thankful for visiting teaching, it has been such an influential and helpful form of therapy in my life. An interesting story, when the Community of Christ first obtained the Red Brick house site, they asked the LDS church to remove the RS emblem, which is now located in the Women's Garden at the Nauvoo LDS visitors center. The church history site leader for the Community of Christ has within the past year sent a letter/email to the Relief Society Presidency stating that he would love for the emblem to be replaced in front of the Red Brick house. They have yet to reply, but what an amazing develpeoment of our relationship with the Community of Christ! They really are a wonderful people. I enjoyed working with them so much!
So on top of the Relief society being organized there, the endowments were also first received there. And for anyone that knows me very well, I literally jump for joy every time I go to the temple because the endowment session is so dear to my heart for personal reasons that few people know. I am so thankful for the joy and peace the celestial room brings to me. I am so thankful for the powerful words spoken and for the covenants made and promised during the endowment session. I wish that every single person, living and dead, can experience this joy the way I do, because I cannot fully express the truth and love that is felt in the temple. Now that I have spilled my guts about the temple, I would like to tell you that the Nauvoo temple is extremely dear to my heart. The saints that lived in Nauvoo literally had nothing. They worked extremely hard on the temple and it is spectacular to witness the beauty and symbolism that has arisen from it's limestone foundation. The way they symbolized the three glories of heaven on the outside just gives me chills. And I am IN LOVE with the star stain glass windows. I keep thinking of ways that I could make one to have for myself. It may be because I had the opportunity to climb up the spiral stairwell and stand directly behind one seeing the glittering sunlight shine in through the cloud cover, but I am in love none the less. We also after the session (which was AMAZING) were able to climb all the way to the top of the tower and look out over Nauvoo and the Mississippi. I felt like an Angel. We also were taken down to the baptistery, which is absolutely breathtaking. The first baptistery was originally made of wood and was made large enough to have two baptisms at once. The remodeled one is the same size, made of stone, with a beautiful staircase leading to the large, seemingly vast baptism waters. I want to serve in the Nauvoo temple someday. I could just live in that temple right now. I love it so so much.
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| The red brick house. |
Moving on to some funny stories before I end with my experience at Carthage Jail. I cannot write this blog and not mention the food. We were completely and entirely spoiled. The food was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. And saying that still does not give it justice. We had yummy taco salad and roast and delicious pastas and amazing hamburgers (the best I've ever had). We were in food heaven. We had watermelon a few times and let me tell you...I am the biggest watermelon fiend you have ever met. Matt (another geology student on the trip) was the only person that tied with me. I would eat about 8 or more slices with each meal we had it at, and it would have been more if I didn't have to leave to go work or if it wasn't gone. I love love love watermelon. Everyone was so shocked watching me eat it. One time I was trying to break the core in half when it snapped a little to fast and one piece went flying and hit Lach (the Community of Christ Church history guy). I could not stop laughing. On top of these moments we told a lot of funny jokes and often times we were so tired that we couldn't stop laughing. We played a lot of card games and went for a lot of car rides to see the sunsets. We laughed at the shows done by the performing missionaries in the evenings and by the missionary couples. One show in particular led to laughs that never ceased. The main actor/elder was the printer and he was introducing the show trying to tell us what his job was. He was trying to say that all the playbills had been sold, but instead said that all the playBOYS had been sold! hahaha! What made it worse is that a few lines later he had to say playmates! We (meaning the whole audience) could not stop laughing. Another scary, but hysterical moment happened late one evening in the Nauvoo house. I had been downstairs playing cards when Sarah, my wonderful brave friend, came downstairs and showed me a nice little picture on her camera. It was NOT nice. There was a spider the size of a quarter on my bed. Nasty and brown and viscous! I am positively and absolutely afraid of spiders. Actually I'm afraid of all bugs (even lady bugs), but most especially spiders. Sarah so kindly shook out all of my sheets and sleeping bag, but could not find the spider. I was absolutely devastated. How could I sleep in a bed that had genghis khan nearby somewhere. Needless to say I spent the whole night praying that it would not kill me. It was karma I tell you, just a few hours prior I told someone that I always take the top bunk because spiders and mice will attack the bottom bunk first. Bam, slap in the face! I moved to a bottom bunk the next day. Luckily the spider did not come back!
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| I love watermelon. One plate for watermelon and one for the meal (2 helpings that is!). |
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| the nasty spider! ahhh! |
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| Sarah didn't want to look awkward taking a picture of the performing missionaries looking at the GPR, so I was her pawn. |
Nauvoo had beautiful sunsets. The saints may have described it as swampy, and it still is, but I can see where the name comes from. The fireflies make the night majestic, the sunrise brings new breath and peace to the day. The sunset makes any wrongs disappear. The sounds of the wildlife bring wonderful comfort and sleep songs. If you haven't noticed already I am completely in love with this place. On sunday afternoon we loaded up and headed over to Carthage Jail. I had at this point already learned so much more about Joseph and his life. It's amazing how much I didn't know! I thought I should have know more than anyone having grown up so close to Palmyra and basically living there. He is just such an amazing person. How did he have time? He was a husband, father, mayor, chief justice, and most importantly prophet, seer and revelator! He played games with the neighborhood boys and youth, loved horseback riding and collected many horses and yet found time to build and run the Red Brick store for a time, only giving ownership to someone else because he was not good at selling the merchandise, but instead gave it away freely. And he found time and the means to give people things and always help them. And he was extremely strong; he could beat the most fit of the Nauvoo police at stick pull. When at Carthage Jail, I learned that he let the men sleep on his biceps. He was always so giving. He loved the people with all his heart. As I toured through each room of the jail my emotions kept building. He new he was going to die in that place, and yet he did not fight. He went peacefully and he tried to help those with him as much as he was able. While I stood in one of the holding cells the sister missionary asked what we would change in our lives if we knew we were going to die the next day. Most people said they would repent or snickered at the corniness, but all I could think about was my husband. If I were going to die I wanted to be with my family. I wanted to see my husband one last time, I wanted to hold him and embrace him. I was just so overwhelmed with emotion and even still as I am writing right now. The pain I was feeling at that moment even though I knew I would see Seth again was the same pain that Joseph felt at not being able to see Emma again. But his was so much more real, and yet what did he do? He loved those that were with him. He took care of them for the last few days that he had left on the Earth. What an amazing testimony of love I felt as I stood in that jail. As I listened to a poor wayfaring man sung in that room and stared at the gunshots in the door and at the window that Joseph fell through, I knew more than ever that the cause that Joseph and Hyrum fought and died for was a true and righteous cause. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that his church exists on the Earth today. I know that Joseph Smith restored that gospel through our Heavenly Father's will and Christ's Hand on the Earth today. I know that Christ suffered for our sins and that he loves each of us more than we'll ever know on a deep emotional and individual level. I have felt that love on numerous occasions and I know that if people take the time to visit Nauvoo and truly ponder on the sites and feelings found in the area they can come to a knowledge of the truths I have felt. They too can become a witness of the Greatness of Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.
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| Sunset on the Mississippi. |
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| Sunset at the Nauview house. |
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| Families can be together forever. I am so excited to have a family! |
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| I was extremely emotional and Sarah thought it was hilarious. It was pretty funny. |
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| The original door. I will leave the description at that. |
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| The window that Joseph Smith fell through. |
I truly found my holy grail. My testimony has grown tremendously, and that is the grail I needed to find. I wish I could say more to truly express how meaningful this trip was for me, but the only way for anyone to understand is for them to experience the wonder and beauty for themselves.
