April 28, 2016 - Thursday in Nauvoo

We had some marvelous thunder storms last night with some heavy rainfall.  That is a great recipe for a wonderful morning walk!  The air had cleared and the sky was temporarily clear with a wonderful beginning of a beautiful sunrise when we left the house.  We have modified our walk just slightly to incorporate another half mile to make our morning walk around four miles.  We are making the full circuit in about 75 minutes.  It is so important to leave the house by 6:00am!  Look at these residue clouds from last night's storm!;

Look at the straight cloud line!

Another storm brewing??

And after our morning devotional and prayers, we did just that, and left the house a little before 6:00am.  We got home at around 7:20am and got ready to serve together at the Heber C. Kimball Home.  Our shift was from 9:45am to 2:45pm.  But for today, the schedulers put another couple in from 12:00 noon to 5:00pm.  Since we have minimal visitors here this week, and since there are only two chairs in the missionary's waiting area, mom had the idea to have me contact the Saline's, and suggest we work until 1:15pm and leave and they come in at 1:15pm to relieve us.  Made sense to us and to the Saline's!

Then, mom and I got off at 1:15pm and, we went home and changed our pioneer clothing to our missionary attire, and drove to Quincy for a monthly visit to Sam's.  It was a perfect day to do that and not wait for our next P-day.  We had the evening off with no Sunset practice, and the Rendezvous play was last night.  We had a fun and safe afternoon and got back home by 5:00pm.

Thursday's historic site assignment!

One of the Blacksmith's apprentices for Heber C. Kimball!

Serving at the Heber C. Kimball home is always a special experience.  His great grandson, J. LeRoy Kimball began the entire restoration of Nauvoo with an innocent motive, to have a summer home in Nauvoo....  here is his story from Church history;

Dr. J. LeRoy Kimball hadn’t planned to reconstruct historic sites in Nauvoo, Illinois, the city the Saints vacated under persecution in the 1840s as they began their westward travels. When Dr. Kimball first went to this city on the horseshoe bend of the Mississippi River in 1929, he didn’t know he would find the home that had belonged to his great-grand-father, Heber C. Kimball. But he did find it, and he told the woman who owned it that if she ever sold it, he wanted a chance to buy it.

That chance came in 1954. After Dr. Kimball bought the home, he spent several years refinishing it to make it livable. He wasn’t trying to do pure restoration work, in which the home would be returned to its pre-Civil War condition; he was only trying to create a suitable vacation home, a place where the Kimballs could escape the pressures of life.

Instead, it was the beginning of a new life work for Dr. Kimball and his wife, Marjorie Dahlen Kimball.

In 1960 the Kimball home was dedicated. President Spencer W. Kimball, a grandson of Heber C. Kimball and then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, gave the dedicatory prayer. Also at the dedication were Elder Delbert L. Stapley and Elder Harold B. Lee of the Quorum of the Twelve, President J. Reuben Clark, First Counselor in the First Presidency—and a thousand other guests. Many came because they were friends of the Kimballs or patients of Dr. Kimball.

“I thought they’d all go home, and then we’d move into the house and spend two or three weeks there whenever we felt like it,” says Dr. Kimball. “But all we did was act as guides. We never did spend a night in that home. Never have.”

As interest in restoring old Mormon homes and buildings in Nauvoo grew, Dr. Kimball found himself buying land to protect the Kimball property. First he bought land to the south, to keep a motel from being built near his property. Then he bought the other lots on the Kimball block. Then came the Brigham Young home, which was in disrepair.

“The interest increased rather rapidly,” he says. “Before I knew it, I had thousands of dollars worth of land.” He told President David O. McKay of some forty homes or partial homes that would justify restoration. “I told him I knew what I would do if I had the money: I’d buy them to restore them.” Soon, with private and Church donations, he had the money.

That was the beginning, in 1962, of the nonprofit corporation known as Nauvoo Restoration Inc.

As for Heber C. Kimball, he has such an amazing life story.  He was an example of dedicated and consecrated service to the Lord, in helping to build the Kingdom of God, and as an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  He served eight missions for the Church and had the tremendous love and support of his family during those many years away serving those missions.  Here is a brief history of this great man from the Church history records;

When we speak of building the kingdom of God today, most of the time we mean it in a figurative sense: we serve in the Church, share the gospel with others, and follow the counsel of the living prophet.

Heber C. Kimball did all of these things, but as a blacksmith and potter,1 he also built the kingdom in a literal sense. Kimball was an artisan—a man of considerable manual skill. When he followed Brigham Young from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, he brought this large tool chest with him and used the tools in it to build the Lord’s kingdom in the West.

Throughout his life, Kimball lived his faith and “strove to build both the spiritual and material Kingdom of God.” After his baptism in 1832, Kimball served the Lord wherever and whenever he was called. He served several missions to the eastern United States, and he presided over missionary work in England, baptizing many and helping hundreds of converts immigrate to the United States to join the main body of the Church.  He served on the Nauvoo city council and helped build the Nauvoo Temple. 

After Joseph Smith was killed and the Saints were forced from Nauvoo, Heber C. Kimball helped Brigham Young organize and supervise the Saints’ move across Iowa to Winter Quarters.  He was later called as first counselor to President Brigham Young, and in 1848 he led a company of pioneers across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley.

Heber C. Kimball spent the rest of his life serving the Lord. When he was serving in England in 1840, he explained his attitude toward serving God in a letter to his wife Vilate: “I have got so I feel perfectly easy about these things, for they are the work of God and not the work of man. I know no other way than to be subject to the powers that be. I pray my Father will give me this disposition, for I wish to be in the hands of God as the clay in the hands of the potter.”  

As a man of both faith and labor, Heber lived up to this hope.

Well, you can imagine how special it is to serve here in Nauvoo and learn about these marvelous Saints who built such a strong foundation to the Restored Church of Jesus Christ.  We are learning so much as we read and study about the early Saints and Pioneers.  We are looking forward to sharing these stories with our families and friends back home.... if we can remember them!

Although we may not be called upon to leave our families and livelihoods, we can also offer dedicated and consecrated service in our wards and communities.  For Heber C. Kimball and the other early pioneers, it was their responsibility to lay the strong foundation.  We have the privilege to help finish the walls and the ceilings, and put many of the finishing touches on this great work as the time draws closer to the Lord's Second Coming.  

Isn't it wonderful we have been counted on to be a part of this great work?  Now, let's go do some good!....