Nauvoo Day Four - 16th

We took our final morning in Nauvoo saying our good-byes, we went to the visitor's center and found Garna we said good-bye, then went down the "Trail of Hope," it used to be called the "Trail of Tears" but has since been renamed. This is the very street, that when the saints got pushed out of Nauvoo, they all lined up wagon after wagon along Parley Street to wait their turn to cross the COLD Mississippi River. Along the trail there are plaques that have various people's journal entries around that time.

It make you really feel for them. I can't imagine getting shoved out of MY home that I built, leaving the land that I cleared, leaving a sacred building that took so long to finish that I worked so hard on. On top of whatever other circumstances each was under, whether it was that of old age, with child, with two or three small ones that don't walk well, or widowed the list could go on and on.

It makes me realize how strong their testimonies had to have been! Because if it were me and I didn't know for a FACT that the Church was true there is NO way I would let someone push me out of my home in the middle of February! It would have been so easy to say Easy... don't push me out I don't really believe this stuff. It's like in Horton Hears a Who, he says "I'll have have to say is it's not true, and all of this will go away." It makes me wonder how many of the saints now a days would react to something as big as being push out of their house, when it seems like such trivial things that make some of us as Latter Day Saints fall.

To be out in the freezing cold, having not enough to keep warm, being hungry, having kids being hungry and cold, not knowing the destination, or how long the journey will be, and just trusting the Lord. Those saint that went through all of that are all my hero's!

I thought it was great that we left this part for the very end our trip, it gave it a little more to look back on the temple and say good-bye to this beautiful place!

After we got all the way done with the trail, Bert showed up and stayed and talked with us for a long while. I really enjoyed spending time with them, I can't convey in writing how strongly I could feel the Spirit of what they were doing and of how much of a testimony they had. I really enjoyed hearing Bert's thoughts and testimony of Joseph Smith. It strengthened my own by hearing his. He had so many neat things, and experiences to share with us, it was so great that he was able to come by and say good-bye.

He had given Baden a new nick-name while we were there, he called him "Little Yoda." I told him he had about the same ears as Baden so we started calling Bert Big Yoda. They were so fun, glad we got to see them while they were there! We love you Bert and Garna!

Our last little bit in Nauvoo right at the Mississippi River.

Then we took off for Jacksonville to Amish country. It was different than I thought it would be evidently some are not so strict there so they were on cell phones and riding in cars and such. I thought I would have kind of a culture shock but there were A LOT of normal people and the Amish just seemed to dress different and that speak Dutch.