Illinois pt. 1

Amish boys driving a horse and buggy! too cute! they waved to us :)

And excuse the window pictures. 

This is on a bridge crossing the HUGE mississippi river!

Our next stop was Carthage Jail in Illinois

Joseph Smith was hated by people who thought that his beliefs and preaching were threatening to their way of life. on many occasions he was arrested on false charges by wicked men who only wanted to lock him away for a few days or weeks to crush his spirit and intimidate him. On one of these occasions, he and his brother Hyrum were taken to Carthage Jail and there they were killed by an angry mob that rushed the prison. 

I have so much respect for Hyrum. He stood by his brother always, regardless of the consequences. 

I love this song about the two of them:

ignore the weird pictures...this was the only version on youtube i could find!

This song is about Hyrum and Joseph, and I think it's amazing. The church is built on people like Hyrum. Quietly doing good. obedient and faithful. 

This is the Jail. 

Joseph, Hyrum and two of their friends were held here. They sang and prayed and wrote letters. They knew when they left their homes that they would be killed. 

In the end, the mob rushed in, the four men tried to hold the door. The mob shot through the door and hyrum was shot in the face and killed. Joseph fell to the floor with him in mourning. Then Joseph ran to the window, and tried to climb out but was shot by two bullets coming up from outside, and two bullets in the back from the doorway. 

He was killed. He fell to the courtyard.

Being in the jail, and in the room where Joseph was killed was moving. also a little fond. How do i make tat sound not weird? Being there wasn't sad. I didn't cry. No one did actually, It was more an uplifting time. We all knew what happened there but it was calm. no sadness at all, only hope. I think that's why we call it a martyrdom. Because he died for a cause, and his murder, while it was supposed to smother the church actually propelled it forward. The saints moved on. 

That's because although Joseph founded and lead the church through one of it's hardest times, and he did so much, he was just the beginning. So his death was and is the driving force behind the church. He was a Prophet of God. I can never thank him for all that he did.

When we got to Nauvoo, we took all of our things into the hotel

One of the professors, brother Black, brought his 11 year old son Joseph on the tour and whenever the bus stopped Joseph asked his dad to play catch. they always did, and it was adorable every time.

In old Nauvoo, There are senior missionaries (volunteer missionaries who are married and  over 50 years of age.) who put on a cute little play for us. It was about the older saints leaving Nauvoo. too cute, honestly. My mom and Dad need to serve here! they would LOVE it. My mom told me that it's their dream mission. 

after that little rendezvous we walked "the trail of hope". The trail out of Nauvoo toward the mississippi.

The mississippi smelled. I took some picture to prove i was in it! haha

The trail was touching, all along the way there were quotes from the people who had to walk it, leaving behind their city. I cannot believe that they had to leave. I don't know how they did it. But more on that in the next post, because i have a lot to say about it and this post has been long enough.

spigot

We live right in between two fields. Some couple who lives in England owns the lots to the left and right of us, but not ours. 

?

I am forever grateful to this nameless faceless European couple for not caring about their land other than sending someone to cut down the weeds each summer to prevent wildfires.

These fields provided literally COUNTLESS hours of play growing up. seeing Natalie and Caleb run and hide and create and dig in the same fields makes me really happy.

The other day i took them to the secret spigot. a random water spout in the farthest corner of the field to our left. i don't know why it's there, but it saved me many a hot summer afternoon. It was probably just as far to go to the kitchen for a drink, but tromping through tall weeds is way more fun, so yeah.

that wink. kill me dead.

 I don't know if Caleb is too young, but i hope Natalie remembers living here in ten years. I hope she never forgets running around in Grammy's fields or visiting grandpa Jamie out at the vineyard. I hope she never forgets all our seemingly pointless but very meaningful little chats.

I want her to remember me painting with her and calling her a jumping bean and taking pictures of every little thing she does. I just want them to remember how much i loved them.

I have been feeling a lot lately like my time is running out. I don't know if that makes sense. It's probably just because i'm starting school again. I've just been trying to like, i don't know, tell everyone everything. I just want everyone to know. That i love them, that i want the best for them, that i think about them. That there is SO much good in the world, and it's really easy to see.... excuse me for a second while i go buy some tie dye and some John Lennon glasses. peace, love, granola.

But really, I just have this crazy strong desire to shout at random people at the street, 

"DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY?! I'M HAPPY!!  LET ME TELL YOU WHY I'M HAPPY! I CAN SHOW YOU HOW YOU CAN BE HAPPIER" 

but that sounds really creepy and the strangeness is only amplified when i yell it out of a car window. And people don't really like it when you tell them that Jesus is the answer to all of their problems.

But really, I've just been bursting lately. And I have no idea why. (that's a lie. I know exactly why, it's because of my journal. but that my friends is a post that is sitting and waiting to be published on the 30th of April.) I just want everyone to be happy, dang it. 

*off my soapbox*

back to the field....

We had a blast.

I go back to Rexburg in 6 days. 

I never want to leave these kids. never ever. they drive me absolutely insane some days.

But then there are those rose colored moments that erase all the crazy.

sigh.

I love them.

Not pictured? Jenna Bear. WALKING. 

yeah, she walks. like six steps at a time, but hey she WALKS! 

On Sunday I looked her straight in the eye and said, "dewwa, you have to walk before i leave!"

she giggled, like usual.

then Monday night during family home evening what does she do?

Walk. seven whole steps. and when they called me out to show me, she walked some more. I said, "Jenna you did it! Yay!"

she just smirked. like, "well, duh aunt melissa."

hap hap happy, i tell ya.

Temple Walk

So i realized that i never blogged about my temple walk on my old blog

so i'll tell you about it here. :)

I heard a talk by Elaine S Dalton during a session of General Conference in which she told this story. It made me want to do the same thing! Since i'm in the middle of Personal progress, i decided to do a temple walk for one of my Value projects.

I planned the safest route from five miles away from the Fresno Temple at a church building.

I invited all the girls i know in my area, set a date, volunteered some parents to walk with us and were on our way.

 the whole point of the activity was to show our determination to be worthy to be sealed (Married) in the temple and to compare our walk to the temple to the time span of our life. 

We stopped about every mile and I prepared several spiritual thoughts, taken from stories of saints giving up everything just to go to the temple.

When we were around the corner, we all held hands and walked together the rest of the way.

the feeling was incredible. knowing how hard we had worked to get there, and thinking of everyone who has come before us and sacrificed so much to go there.

when we got to the temple, I invited my wonderful friend Amanda Reyes

to speak to us about how she prepared to attend the temple and about her temple marriage.

Then all the other girls and I had a few minutes to read our scriptures, and write in our journals and reflect our feelings toward the temple.

I'm SO grateful for all the girls who joined me on my walk. 

I love them all so much!

I hope their testimony of the Lord's temples was strengthened, because i know mine was. 

I also feel like all of us girls made a silent deal with each other day. We're all going to the temple. We're all gonna make it. We're all going to each other's weddings. We all love each other too much to do anything that would distract from our goal of eternal marriage.

I love to see the temple.

I'm going there someday to feel the Holy spirit, to listen and to pray.

For the temple is a House of God, a place of love and beauty.

"I’ll prepare myself while I am young" this is my sacred duty.

The temple is a holy place where we are sealed together.
As a child of God, I’ve learned this truth:

a Family is forever.