There and Back Again: Week 10

As you can see, these homes are not built for big people! Elder Cullen and I were blessed with an additional calling this week. We've been assigned to be Site Coordinators for the William and Caroline Weeks Home and the Elizabeth and William Jones Stone Pavillion. This means we are responsible for shoveling the snow from the sidewalks and stairs, keeping the home clean inside and making sure the site missionaries fill out the visitor forms and have what they need. This job has added some extra hours to our week and extra blessings!

The stairs to the basement/kitchen are SO narrow that my shoulders touch both walls when I use the stairs and the I can barely squeeze past the turn due to the wall bulging out near the bottom. Elder Cullen didn't even try. I cleaned the basement myself while he cleaned upstairs.

It was wonderous to look at the architecual plans and think, "This is where Joseph and William Weeks designed the Beautiful Nauvoo Temple! How did they do THIS without modern tools, electricity, hydraulic power, etc?" The saints built this sacred edifice at great sacrifice. They were finishing it AS the mobs who had attacked and destroyed many of their homes and killed many people, threatened to come do it again if they didn't leave the country. Up until the last minute they, at the risk of their very lives, stayed to receive their covenants of eternal families before fleeing from the country to find a place where they could be free to govern themselves according to their beliefs.

The temple was rebuilt to the same plans and design about 10 years ago. (The mobs had burned it out) I can feel the sacredness and power of this house of God. Find a temple near you and just go and touch it. You will also feel it is a sacred place.