Nauvoooooooooooooo

I could write a book.  Our Nauvoo trip didn't let me down, only exceeded my expectations.  It was like EFY for families and I'm still riding the cloud a week later.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a vacation. But every member of the family wants to go back, and considering the heat and bugs, that is pretty SIGNIFICANT!

We had several small miracles that testified to me that we are in God's hands always. You know that feeling where time seems to stop, the Spirit whispers to you, and your whole being feels filled with light.  I'm not a cryer, but I had my throat catch and eyes leak at least a dozen times. It happened while I spoke with people and our spirits spoke volumes. It happened when I looked around me on stage and saw my children singing strong, testifying through song. It happened when I sat in the Nauvoo Temple and at Carthage where the spirit testified of the significance of events that took place. It happened whenever there was testimony.

At Carthage, in the window where Joseph was martyred.

Every night we had a devotional as a family with one of the core cast members. He shared thoughts and stories, like a mini family home evening.  Most of all we learned from him about good fruit and bad fruit in the things we say and that we are creators of our own worlds, simply with words. Nothing new, but presented in a new way that impacted us to help us be more aware of how we treat each other and the rippling effect.  I want to be better.  I think all of us want to be better.

Our family was our own district, devotionals led by Brother Wallace

The pageant itself is beautiful and touching and funny.  We are still quoting the lines, even Alex! Our part in the pageant was to be in the finale and run the country fair that preceded the pageant every night for five nights.  We had assignments in the fair:  Jess and I fiddled in the band, Benson and Josh were assigned the dance floor to teach people the waltz, polka and round dances and Michael and Aubrey were assigned to run the children's crafts.  Jack ran around and did the country fair activities every night (stilts, gunny sack races, puppet show, stick pull, wood sawing) while Alex either did the do-si-do with the big boys or was whisked off by one of several teenage girls that fell in love with him.

Our cast's part in the finale was to rush the stage singing "The Spirit of God", which was super powerful with a couple hundred people.  We ooooh'd while the character Joseph Smith testified and Alex ooooh'ed with the best of them, only facing backward watching us!  Then we'd fill the stage by spreading out.  The costume changes in the show subtly became lighter and lighter, symbolizing the refining of the saints until the end when the costumes were very light in color, thus our light colored costumes. After the pageant ended we were encouraged to go visit with the audience members, make connections with them, and to testify.  I found people were very open to visiting since they were so moved by the pageant. Aubrey liked coming with me since she's shy about talking to people by herself so we had some great experiences we shared from talking to people.  Most people who come are LDS or recent converts.

Since everyone seems to ask, YES THE BUS RAN AWESOME!! Not a single problem, not even a leak.  I can't say that we went unnoticed in Nauvoo. We gave lots of tours of it, saw people point and laugh when they read "Bus Da Move" while we drove along, and caught people taking pictures of it off the street.  It has revolutionized road trips for me, comfort level wise, although it's kinda loud as buses are and the AC didn't ever make us cold, just less hot. We watched movies, played games, and laughed a LOT.  We ended up towing a trailer (who knew we wouldn't have room enough in our BUS for people and stuff) so the gas mileage wasn't great, 10-12 mpg, but as a fellow RV'er said to us, it's not the miles per gallon, it's the SMILES per gallon that matter.  :-)  I had put the bus on the prayer roll every rehearsal at the Motab and at the temple, since it had a sacred purpose and great need to get us to Nauvoo.  (although, I wrote it scribbly so no one would really know).  This was an untested theory, whether it would go farther than 20 miles. Can you even believe it made it over 3300 miles??  53 hours of driving felt like 12, seriously.  Greatest mode of transportation ever.

 

More pics and stories to come....