The Laoag and on to Nauvoo and then on to Martin's Cove Blog: December 2, 2015

We had our Wednesday Training meeting this morning and reviewed the Church initiative "A Savior is Born". The web site, as I have indicated before, is christmas.mormon.org and there are several wonderful points that will be available to be viewed there. We have both 3 minute videos in the Visitor's Center and they are so well done! We hope all of you have seen them and will share them with family and friends everywhere.

Since we had our training meeting this morning, we had to forgo the walk and workout. But we are very consistent with our morning devotional and prayers. We had a good start to the day and we were willing to walk to the Visitors Center in a light snow fall!

Here are some pictures of the site we served in today. The Seventies Hall was the place that the Nauvoo Saints were trained before heading out on missions. The building was completed in December 1844, and was used by the Church missionaries until the exodus in 1846.

Senior Missionary Couple at the Seventies Hall

Take the Gospel to all the world!

The First MTC!

Books that our friend Jolene Allphin left here this summer!

This is Kristina Stout and her mom from Fremont, CA!

The Seventies Hall has a wonderful Spirit about it. We only had one tour today and three visitors, but we enjoyed being together. And, yes, we walked to the Seventies Hall in the light snow fall and got to our assignment right on time. I've included some information on the Seventies Hall for my grandchildren;

Seventies Hall, Nauvoo, Illinois, USA

                    The Seventies Hall
   Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
             Prints & Photographs Division

The Seventies Hall in Nauvoo was created as a meeting place for the Seventies, a quorum organization in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that focuses on missionary work. It was built in 1844 on land donated by Edward Hunter, a member of the LDS faith in Nauvoo.

During construction of the hall, a tornado leveled one of the walls. Brigham Young instructed the workers to rebuild the wall, making it one additional brick thicker. After it was completed in late July 1844, the hall also became the first library in Nauvoo, housing many books brought from abroad by returning missionaries. When the Saints moved to Utah, the books were removed from the Seventies Hall and used to establish the first library between Missouri and California. The main floor was also used as a lecture hall and as a chapel for church meetings, while the second floor contained the library and office for the seventies. The hall was dedicated by Brigham Young in December 1844, although it had already been in use for several months. In early August 1844, it was in the Seventies Hall that Sidney Rigdon presented to the other leaders of the Church his claim that he should be a “guardian” over the Church.

After the Saints left Nauvoo to travel west, the Seventies Hall became the meeting place for another denomination before the second floor was removed and the structure used as a schoolhouse. Sometime before 1897, the building was leveled. In the 1960s, the site was bought by Nauvoo Restoration, Inc., and in 1971-72, a replica of the original building was erected on the original foundation. Today, a museum of Nauvoo artifacts resides on the second floor, and the main floor has been restored to as it appeared in the 1840s.

We got home at just a few minutes past 5:00pm tonight. Mom had some laundry to finish and I had some work to do in our weekly projects. Then we spent the balance of the evening in quiet time enjoying music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We had our Carthage friends, the Hansen's stop by for a quick visit. He made mom and me a Christmas Creche. We had been talking about having something for our Christmas decorations and this was a wonderful surprise! Take a look;