March 15, 2015 - Sunday

Unbelievable!  Today is the end of the first month of our mission here in Nauvoo.  The time is really flying by for us and we are so very grateful to be here.  The morning was gorgeous so we walked to our 8:00am meeting.  We had our Sacrament Meeting first at the Nauvoo Stake Center, and then moved to the Visitors Center for Sunday School and Priesthood and relief Society.  The meetings and the lessons are so wonderful.  We are surrounded by so many good people!  

I have been asked to be the chorister for Priesthood.  Imagine that!  I have been adamant about preparing young men to be prepared to lead music and develop talents to play music, and now here I am leading the music in Priesthood!  Next week I get to teach the Priesthood lesson.  I have been given the assignment to teach lesson #6 in Teachings of the Prophets - Ezra Taft Benson.  I absolutely love President Benson's teachings and have worked on the details of that lesson this past week.  They have mom teaching Relief Society on the same day and the same lesson.  We were given about two weeks to prepare this lesson.

This afternoon, after Church, we were put "on call" for the sites so we came home and worked on our lessons for next Sunday and then took a walk.  Here are some pictures I took today after visiting some sites that I have not yet been in before;

Here in the Scovil Bakery is a picture of one of the 14 remaining plates that Lucius Scovil had made.  I covered this story last week but wanted to show the plate again with the inscriptions on the front and the back.  This original is a darker blue plate and is in a protective case.

On the back side of the plate copy is a detail of the history of the plate.  Lucius Scovil made enough of these plates in England to hand them out while he was tracking out investigators.  I wonder if that is what he actually did?  Certainly the picture of the temple would raise interest in finding out more about the Mormon beliefs and their temple!  There is some speculation that this may have been his purpose.  After losing his wife and son and twin daughters to death just prior to being called on a mission to England, the temple sealing meant everything to him.  He knew he would be with his family again and the whole idea of the plate fully supports this purpose.

This is a copy of the first plates that Lucius Scovil had made in 1846.  They sell these in the stores in Nauvoo.  Below the plate in this picture is the original foundation of the Scovil Bakery in 1846.  Lucius Scovil and his wife began the bakery without any previous baking experience.  He had purchased the land and then sold a part of the property to the Prophet Joseph for $1 for a Masonic Hall.  The Masonic Hall was also used for dances and plays and various meetings and became more of the Cultural Hall that it evolved into.  That is when he realized he could sell fresh baked food to theater goers and he and his wife did very well in this business prior to 1846.

 

This is an amazing story!  Can you read the information?  This special lady was said to have been the last living person to have personally known the Prophet.

This is Mary Field Garner's home is Nauvoo.   She apparently left after the exodus in 1846.  This cabin is about the same size as her original cabin and was built during the restoration project on her father's property near or on the original foundation. 

Here is a corner view of the house.  The City of Nauvoo had about 2,000 wood or log cabins and around 350 brick homes.  Often the residents of Nauvoo could only afford a dugout shelter and then a log home after raising some money.  This story of Mary Garner is touching in that any Mormon's left after September 1846, had to have been very low key.  The mobs continued to threaten and harass the members and forced them out at gunpoint, those they did not murder outright.  

It still is absolutely amazing that people had come to America less that 75 years earlier to escape religious persecution.  The Latter-day Saints were not treated as Americans, even though they did not break any laws, and only wanted the freedom to worship God in their own way.  The people were afraid of the Mormon's because they worked hard, helped each other and banded together to promote their freedom to choose good people in public offices.  It is well understood they their purpose was not to build a city, but to build faith in a Zion society.  They were very careful to not elect anyone that sought for power and control at the expense of the people.  This led to their extermination by those who felt most threatened.  And those in power could easily "stir up" people who would do their dirty work for them while they basked in their government offices.  Sound familiar? 

This evening we had dinner with our district and a meeting right before dinner to take care of some business we are responsible for.  Then we went to the Visitor's Center and watched a DVD presentation on the reenactment of the Saints exodus that the Nauvoo Mission did just a few weeks before we got here.  

We will have more tomorrow!  Have a wonderful evening and thank you for checking out the blog!  Leave a comment or two if you can!