Tidbits across the midwest

 Now that I've done all the documenting of the places, (except for Winter Quarters, which I'll post on Sunday. because it's nice and long. and i mean Loooooooong.) here are some of the people and tiny things that made this trip great:

 Two professors came on this trip. Brother Baggot and Brother Black. Brother Baggot brought his fifteen year old son, Jacob, and Jacob's best friend, Braxton. Brother black brought his 11 year old son, Joseph.

I creepily took pictures of them. This is Braxton:

This is Braxton and Jacob, we were pals: 

And this is Joseph. He hated me.

There were two married couples on our tour. The first couple was awesome. super funny, really kind. Then there was these two:

DEVILS.

they were rude, stand offish, and constantly having weird PDAs. For example, when our tour walked down the trail of hope to the mississippi, we had a nice devotional and afterward we sang a few hymns. the spirit was there was very tender and peaceful. Until i turned around at a weird sound and saw these two makin out hardcore behind me, and i was disgusted. I threw some shade their way and tried to forget about it. several other similar events happened over the course of the trip and it was really annoying.

So the this is brother Baggot, my favorite, for reasons explained in the Winter Quarters post:

He is very kind and soft-spoken. He loves to laugh and joke around. And every morning, he'd say "RISE AND SHINE COUGARS, IT'S GONNA BE A GREAT DAY!" as he was walking down the aisle of the bus or the hall of the hotel to wake us all up. annoying, but i couldn't hate him for it becuase he's just so nice. He's also emotional, like me. So I didn't feel silly when my eyes got watery during certain devotionals or spots on the tour, because his were watery, too.

This is brother Black (also an amazing person) and his son playing football, like they did at every stop:

Brother black was the no-nonsense guide. Still very spiritual and fun and extremely smart, but strict. He knew SO MUCH about church history, and he answered every question i had. 

The missionaries at every stop were all kind and gracious but my favorite were the senior missionaries in nauvoo because they were old. hehe. i love oldies.

Some other Nauvoo tidbits:

 MY PRAIRIE RING!

got it at the blacksmith shop, fell in love with it, wore it non-stop for three weeks. lost it the other day after my Children's literature class. I cried.

THERE WERE SO MANY BUGS.

seriously, gnats just looooove the midwest apparently. and the humidity was KILLER.

Here is my roommate Jaylene saying, "I HATE BUGS, MELISSA". hahaha

Also, while we were waiting for the bus to take us to dinner in Nauvoo, a bird pooped on my skirt. :(
not cool, robert frost. not cool.

 Also, there were two boys that sat behind me and Jaylene. Their names were Chris and DJ. they were HILARIOUS. honestly, i laughed at them so much. just eavsdroppin. and they definitely noticed because one time Chris said, "man, dude DJ these girls in front of us must think we're ugly. Cause they laugh at everything we say but they will not turn around and look at us."

Jaylene and i DIED laughing at that comment

"SEE!" he said.

i still didn't turn around. haha.

eventually we became friends. and i laughed out loud at their jokes instead of snickering quietly. 

I took this creepy picture of Chris in Nebraska. I never did get a picture of DJ. oh well.

In Nebraska, we stopped for dinner. I was hard core craving a famous bowl from KFC. SO good. so we go up to the doors and they're locked. so we checked the lobby hours and it said 8:00am-9:00 pm. it was only 7:45 in the evening so....i was upset. I JUST WANTED A FAMOUS BOWL, ALRIGHT?!

So i Avada Kedavra'd them from the corner. convenient that the street name was potter and the light was green when i took this...

At like 3:00 am monday morning we were stopped in Iowa? i think. or nebraska. I don't even know, doe. and I was delirious. Me, Jacob and Braxton had a dance party. no music, but that made it even better.

about three hours outside of Rexburg, we were all going crazy. we'd been on the bus for more than 24 hours and so Jacob and i played "Black Magic" It's one of those stupid games that you play in like third grade on rainy days. and it took him 73 MINUTES to get the game. haha in the time he got it, every around him for like 3 rows had figured it out and we were all like, "come ON, dude!" haha that was fun. 

Also, on the bus we "slept"  a lot. meaning, we'd close our eyes for twenty minutes or so. there was no comfortable way to sleep on that thing. ha.

and our feet were very swollen. this is me in Nauvoo, but they were TINY here compared to when we got home. but mine were not bad at all, really.

Jaylene, on the other hand, just had elephantitus

and i made this map to brag to Jenae about how many states I've been to. muhaha. So now I've been to 12. TWELVE, jenae! muhahaha. California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Booyah.

Adam-Ondi-Ahman

We got off the bus and walked a trail to the top of hill where you can see the whole valley and i felt like someone literally took all the breath out of me, it was so unbelievably beautiful. 

The greenest place I've ever been.

Our professors sat us down and we had the most amazing lesson! We sang hymns for a few minutes and then had some time to go off by ourselves. I sat and wrote in my journal and thought and hummed hymns to myself and prayed. 

This was my favorite stop because it was the most peaceful place!

I honestly felt like i was in a temple, it felt that still.

Tranquil. Holy, even. 

I sat beneath a tree and wrote and prayed. And i have never felt more compelled to do good than i did there on that hill. 

I wanted to share this bit from my journal entry at Adam Ondi Ahman,

 "Never before has my heart longed for something so fully. ... I never want to leave this place. I want every one i love to be here with me. ..."

"...Christ died and was ressurected for me. God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith. Jospeh Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the power of God. ... it happened. I know it. ""

 "...Never before have the words of a hymn so adequately mirrored the words in my heart than today as we sang, 'I know that my Reedeemer lives. He lives! all glory to his name! he lives, my Savior, still the same. Oh, sweet the joy this sentence give. I know that my Reedeemer lives!'..."

"...I don't know that i have ever felt 'longing' before, but i think i'm feeling it now. that's how deeply i want to be with God, and for everyone i love to be there with me together. ... I wish i had more to say, but this is what i know: It is all so true. -melissa 05.17.13"

Far West, Missouri

I loved Far West. 

I loved the entire trip, and I'm going to say "I loved____" about every place i visited. Because the whole trip was just incredible, but i loved Far West. It was tender. We climbed off the bus, and walked onto the grounds that had been dedicated decades ago for a temple that was never built because the Mormons were ordered to leave Missouri by the Governor.

Let me preface my next statement by clarifying that we, and i mean LDS church as a whole, do not worship Joseph Smith. I won't take a lot of time to explain everything we believe concerning him as a Prophet or leader, instead i'll refer you to the following websites if you're interesting in learning more about why we revere him and his teachings:

http://www.lds.org/topics/joseph-smith?lang=eng

http://mormon.org/faq/topic/joseph-smith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xVw6PsSinI

So, back to Far West.

There a lot of places on church history tours where you can say, "We think Joseph was here, because of  this or that" but this place, the dedicated site in Far West, we know Joseph was there. That was cool. I walked where Joseph and Hyrum and Parley and Wilford walked. 

One of the professors was giving his lesson and when he was finished, the other professor had been on the phone and he told us all that Sister Monson had passed away and we all sang, "God be with you till we meet again." 

How grateful am i for the temple! And for a belief in eternal families. Thomas will see his Francis again someday, and they will be together forever.

After the song, we continued our lesson and then were given a few minutes to walk around before leaving. 

How do i describe the confirmation that happened there? 

It was a soft, constant feeling in my heart that I am in the right place. meaning Rexburg, Idaho. and also Far West. It was a quiet whisper that I'm doing the right things in my life. And a small push to keep doing those good things. 

My testimony of Jesus Christ is mostly made up of little moments.Yes, there are some specific things that were big, and made a big difference in the way i lived past a certain point. But for the most part I believe in the Savior of the world because of every time I've sung a hymn in church or read a passage of scripture that perfectly coincided with my day. I am who i am, and i believe what i believe because of a thousand tiny things that cement me where i stand. 

Far West, Missouri, for whatever reason, was one of those little things. nothing significant happened there. there were no shouts of thunder or earth moving miracles. just one more step was taken toward who i hope to be. But it was a good step. A confident one, and one that gave me pride and worth. 

 Just another drop of oil in my lamp. Another rock in my Happy Wagon.

small, but not unnoticed. 

Independence, Missouri

So i'm back in Rexburg (insert tears here)

And get read for a Midwest series. 

So Wednesday afternoon we all piled on a bus and we drove through the night.

 SLEEPING ON A BUS IS HORRIBLE. i can barely sleep in cars as it is. At one point i literally sat down on the floor and laid my head against the seat. I actually slept for awhile until the girl in front of me leaned her seat back and SQUISHED me (specifically my head) in between her seat and mine. needless to say, i was woken up. and then i just couldn't sleep. gah.

when i actually woke up- woke up, we were in Nebraska. flattest place ever. no actually, IOWA is the flattest place I've ever been. just flat. flat flat flat. not one hill in sight.

Then eventually we got to Missouri.

Excuse the dirty window blurry picture, i was just fascinated by how GREEN everything was

We stopped briefly at the Kansas City temple. We didn't have time to go through because we had an appointment in Independence that we didn't want to be late for.

My bangs have officially reached the most awkward length of all man kind. every time i trim my hair it takes all my strength not to chop them short again. haha.

So we drove to Independence, MO.

some quick back history:

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was organized in 1830. In 1847 when the Mormons were kicked out of Illinois and trekked to Salt Lake City, some of them disagreed with the move west for reasons regarding Brigham Young as Prophet. They stayed in the Midwest under the name, "The Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and today are centered in Independence. In 2001 they changed the name of their church to "Community of Christ" and built a temple in Independence dedicated to world peace. 

As part of our tour, we were learning about churches who have branched off from our church. This was one of them. Going through their temple was a very interesting thing and i actually learned a lot about their religion! So that was intriguing. 

we also visited the dedicated temple site for the Independence temple. that was cool.

We went to Chik-fil-a for dinner because Jaylene hadn't ever been! blasphemy!   and then we headed to Liberty Jail

turns out? My cousin Kendra lives just around the corner! So she ran over so we could say hi and chat for a second. Kendra is one of my heroes, honestly. And she and her husband are so great together. They are one of the couples that just make me really hopeful for my future marriage. Alos, I have never met a single other person on earth who is quite like Kendra! hahaha she's so funny and kind!

That night we stayed at a hotel in Independence, and oh my goodness let me tell ya, that bed felt like i was sleeping on a cloud compared to that bus seat.