nauvoo, city beautiful

Meet Ma & Pa Meador :)  We picked up our sweet white van a few days before the trip, and met our 10 "children" the morning we left for Nauvoo.  It was crazy cramped inside the van, but we really had a great group of kids who didn't complain and just went with the flow.  Let me first say that it was a long drive!!  The first 8 hours went by fairly well, but the last 4ish were SO SLOW.  The kids weren't supposed to bring ear buds, but a few of ours were using them early on, which we discouraged.  By hour 8, we didn't really care because everyone was so tired and eager to just get there!  You can only play so many get-to-know you games, church videos, and movies. 

 Once we arrived, we had some dinner (courtesy of the Stake-assigned cooks), had an hour or so to relax, then had devotional and lights out. All our girls were in one room, and our boys in another at the Hotel Nauvoo right near the temple.  All the Ma's were in one room, with the Pa's in another.  That was kind of annoying because I had no privacy to talk with Kevin about the day, make plans, etc...but we made it work and chatted in the hall before bed.

 The whole temple experience was really neat, and we were able to do baptisms for the dead both mornings.  The rest of our time was spent exploring all the historical sites, attending shows, and watching both the British and the Nauvoo Pageant. The youth favorite was the blacksmith shop since we all were gifted a ring made from a nail ("prairie diamond").

 Had to take a picture by this fairy house to show Brookie...

 One of the shows we watched, with lots of fun music and dancing.

 Our family on the steps of the temple.

This was the second morning, and the night before had been a rough one.  I had just drifted off to sleep (sometime after midnight), when I woke up to one of our girls at our door telling us that some of the girls weren't in the room. Apparently they had gone to talk to some of the boys, but had never come back.  Another Ma went with me to knock on the boy's door, but of course once we knocked, it went totally silent inside.  They wouldn't open the door, so we then went and knocked on the Pa's door to wake them up.  The Stake YM President and Kevin came out, knocked on the boys' door, and still no answer.  We then went outside to check things out, and saw people climbing out the window and running to the parking lot.  This was all pretty intense for me, and I was not prepared for how to handle this situation.  I went over to the girls, two of which were in our family.  One girl was visibly distraught, and after lots of questions, one of the girls said that a family friend had tried to commit suicide that night, so they had gone to talk to her cousin (in the boy's room), and when she started to have a panic attack, they went into the boy's room because they didn't know what to do.  I didn't know the girls well enough to gauge whether this was the truth, or a totally elaborate story.  I asked whether things were okay, or if she wanted a blessing to calm down.  She said she wanted a blessing, but Kevin felt weird about the whole thing since we didn't know what actually went on since the boys wouldn't even open the door.

So, this is turning into a long story, but we went back to the boy's room, and they finally opened the door but were total liars and wouldn't even admit that the girls were in there.  This didn't really make us very confident in anybody's story, and after multiple interrogations (ha, seems intense, but it kind of was because we had to figure out what was going on), the story actually checked out and the kids were just scared of getting in trouble.  But at least the girl's told the truth, which is more than what the boys did.  Once the story was straight, Kevin went back to give our "daughter" a blessing, which was actually a really cool experience.  We asked them to get some sleep because we had another early morning at the temple planned.

I was exhausted by the time I hit my pillow at 1:30, and was up again at 6 for the temple.  The two girls came to my room that morning and apologized for the way they handled things.  I told them that I understand why they got scared (because it would look bad that they were in the boy's room), but that they need to find a leader if someone is in trouble or having an anxiety attack.  I felt like although I was a novice at these types of situations, I was able to show more love to those girls and we still managed to have a normal relationship for the next 2 days.

The highlight of the trip (if you call it that), was visiting Carthage Jail.  I had no idea how powerful the Spirit would be in that jail house.  Not only did my testimony grow about the prophet Joseph Smith, but I was able to better understand the actual events that took place.  When we entered the bottom floor, we stood in a small room and the guide talked about how the floors were the original floors.  As we moved onto the next room, the floorboards squeaked beneath our feet and I felt the Spirit so intensely.  To know that the Prophet stood on those exact floors was so incredible to me.  A lot of the homes in Nauvoo are replicas, and the homes are mostly filled with "period accurate" items.  But the jail was totally different.  When we went to the upper room, we sat on benches and they played an audio recording of the events as if we were actually there as the mob arrived.  I don't think there was a dry eye in the room.  The bullet hole on the door is also original, and patrons were permitted to touch the hole.

After Carthage, we walked the Trail of Tears, and ended with a testimony meeting by the river. A lot of our kids, and kids from our ward, bore powerful testimony and I was so grateful for this experience.  It's amazing to see the power in our youth.

On the drive home, we took a detour and went to the Liberty Jail, which was also really incredible.  The drive home went more quickly than the drive there, which was a welcome feeling :) I helped drive for a few hours as well since Kevin was getting sleeping.  It really was a lot for the leaders to drive all day, spent two full days in Nauvoo, and drive home the fourth day. Kevin and I basically traded off napping for the next two days, haha.