Nauvoo day 2

Friday morning we woke up bright and early to go to the 7AM Temple session. Last time I was here, I got to do baptisms so I was excited that we could do a session as well. This temple is so unique and so beautiful.

Afterwards we got back to our hotel to change and then while Mom and Dad Doutre, Austin, and Bree did baptisms, Cami, Sean and I had lunch and toured some of the homes. I think I mentioned this before but some of my favorite parts of Nauvoo were hearing the stories while we touring these homes. I especially loved when the missionaries would tell their own stories of people coming through and sharing tender stories.

One of my favorites was a sister missionary was taking a couple near the end of the day through the cultural hall where they had the ballroom upstairs. The wife asked if the sister missionary could take a picture of them because they were on their honeymoon. The sister gladly did and then, even though they're not supposed to leave the guests unattended during tours, she said the Spirit told her to leave them be for a little bit. So she went downstairs and could hear the couple dancing while the wife was singing to her husband. Precious.

 In the ballroom at the cultural hall. Original floors when the saints were here.

That same sister took us through the John Taylor home and there was an original rocking horse in one of the rooms. The story was told that a mother came back to the house while the mob was still in the John Taylor home to get the rocking horse for her son. This sister missionary was telling that story to another group one time and a little 4 year old said, "why did she do that? She could have been caught!" which his dad put his hand on his shoulder and tenderly said, "you haven't fathered yet." The sister missionary just thought that was the most tender thing.

In the John Taylor home. I just thought it looked so cozy. 

This sister missionary has been a convert for about 3 years and you can tell she's on fire! Her bishop told her to slow down and she said, "I'm just getting started!" I love the missionaries that we met on the trip. She was definitely one of our favorites.

Across the street from the John Taylor home, the young performing missionaries were singing songs and doing their own rap version to Book of Mormon stories. It was da best.

In the afternoon, we went to the Lucy Mack Smith home and she was a mighty woman in her small stature. I especially felt the Spirit when they told her experience of defending her testimony of the Book of Mormon.

That evening, we all gathered with the aunts and uncles and cousins for a little family history night. We learned about our ancestor William Walker. Pretty impressive man...I think he did 10,000 temple names?! And the people in South Africa revere him for the missionary work he did there.

And of course, we ended the evening by watching the British pageant. So well done! Then somehow everyone ended up in the Doutre hotel room eating popcorn and laughing our heads off (a lot of stories about Grandma too;) Apparently I eventually fell asleep on Austin's shoulder and had my mouth wide open and gave everyone some good laughs too...great ;)