Nauvoo Pageant

I have spent most of the last week or so with Karen's parents.  It has been a lot of fun.  We drove up here to Nauvoo Sunday after church and we've spent the last two days here.  It has been great.  This is my third time to Nauvoo.  The first time was when I was about 10 years old and we were on a family trip to go pick up my oldest brother from in Indianapolis.  The second time was two years ago when Karen and I moved out to Tennessee.  We only spent one day here and her dad and I were so sick that neither of us could bear to see all of the sites.  So this is really my first time being old enough and healthy enough to appreciate everything.  I have really enjoyed what I've seen here and all that I've learned about church history.  It has been very educational.

We just watched the Nauvoo pageant today and I believe that is my first time watching it.  It is amazing.  It talks a lot about all of the trials that we go through in life and how they bring us closer together.  It also talks about the plan of salvation and the life after death.  Joseph Smith gives part of the King Follett discourse, at the time when King Follett dies.  I felt once again how real the sealing power of the priesthood is and how real the next life is.  I know that Karen is doing well and that she is happy where she is.  I love her very much and I look forward to the time when I will get to see her again.  She is so very dear to me. 

All of these trials that the pioneers had to go through seem so much more real to me when I realize that many of my ancestors were there experiencing all of this.  One of my ancestors sold Jonathan Browning the plot of land where he built his gun shop.  Another of my ancestors owned a plot of land not far from Brigham Young and yet another ancestor owned 50 acres of land just outside the city limits for farming.  Reading their journals and other records about them makes it seem so much more real to me because it's my ancestor.  It gives me the courage to be stronger whenever I have any trials.