Nauvoo

For family home evening last Monday, Andrew taught a lesson about temples. Emily loved watching the video about why we have temples and looking at all of the pictures of temples.  She said and signed temple through the entire lesson and loved spotting as many as she could. The next morning she woke up and ran straight to the computer saying, “temple!”.

She brought up the subject of temples all week. When we put her to bed Wednesday night we told her we were going to the temple in the morning. She was a great sport during our five hour drive, especially since we woke her up at 5:30 ET.  The last hour of the drive we had the following conversation and over and over:

E: “Temple” (signed and said)

J: “Yes, we are going to the temple.”

E: “Where (signed) be (said)”

J: “The temple is in Nauvoo. We will be there x amount of minutes/miles.”

E: “See (signed and said).

J: “Yes we are going to see the temple.”

E: “Emily (signed and said “me”)

J: “Yes Emily is going to see the temple soon.”

And then we’d begin again. When we finally arrived at Nauvoo Emily looked out the window and got a good look at the brick bathroom building in the temple parking lot and exclaimed, “Temple BIG” (signed and said). We agreed that the bathroom was big, and then we turned her attention to the actual Nauvoo Temple. The she got really excited and said again, “Temple BIIIIIIIIG!!!”

Andrew went in to the temple right away, and Emily and I met with a friend who lives nearby that I hadn’t seen in years. We walked the streets of Old Nauvoo, played at pioneer pasttimes, and had a picnic together. After our friends left, we went to the Living History Center and made a rope together, ate homemade bread, and played with dolls.

When Andrew joined us after the temple, we went to the temple together so Emily could get up close and touch it. She loved seeing the temple and was thrilled to run around, despite our best efforts to suggest reverence. She taught me a great lesson in feeling and living the joy that the temple brings.

  Andrew and Emily repeated the loop of activities, adding the Scovill bakery to the  mix, while I went to the temple. 

I finished in the temple around 5pm and we headed for Iowa to spend the weekend with my family. We had dinner at perkins and Emily enjoyed playing with the jam packets and sweeteners. We were all really glad when we arrived at my parents’ home at 8:30.