Birthday Musings

                                              Joseph and Hyrum's final farewell to Nauvoo

     Today is April 17, 2013.
I feel impressed today as I begin my 71st year, to express my feelings to our children and ask them to read this to all our grandchildren.
To be here in Nauvoo has been the zenith of my life ----especially to be here with my most wonderful companion, Sis. Ririe.  Our love for each other and the Gospel of Jesus Christ has increased greatly in the short time we have been here.
Nauvoo is truly a spiritual experience.  We literally walk daily on some of the most sacred ground on earth.  I feel the same Spirit walking the streets  of Nauvoo as I feel in the Temple and when we were in the Holy Land last year. We are priviledged to go to the Temple every week. One cannot separate the Temple experience  from the daily experiences of the early residents of Nauvoo, even though it was not finished and completely dedicated until they left to go west.
This town was truly a miracle right from the beginning.  The Mormons arrived here in 1839 and even non-member visitors, many of them influential in eastern U. S. cities, wrote how remarkable it was to see such an " impossibility" it was, that in only six years, that this city grew from an unhealthy uninhabited swamp to one of the most beautiful, well laid out, prosperous, peaceful, bustling, law abiding cities they had ever seen.  Within those short six years it grew to 12000 within the city limits and within a diameter of 5 miles there were     20000 total population.  (Chicago in 1846 had 18000 population).  There were over 350 brick homes, making it a very beautiful permanent looking city.
Certainly there was not a greater miracle of peace and stability anywhere else in the United States, wrote one visitor.
But as is almost always the case, religious intolerance was alive and well.  Lucifer does not like peace and stability and spirituality.  The same religious intolerance that existed over 2000 years ago, which resulted in the murder of the very Savior of the world in Jerusalem, arose in the communities surrounding Nauvoo.
Political jealousies  of such a great and prosperous city and people were the excuse for persecution which resulted in the murder of the greatest Prophet of God that ever walked on the earth ---who literally did "more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men and women in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it"  (D & C 135:3 --please read the whole verse and explain it to our grandchildren), and the expulsion of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lived in Nauvoo, from the State.  Sis. Ririe and I spent the day last Thursday, giving our first tours of the Carthage Jail. (What an experience that was --very hard for me, but a wonderful spiritual experience)
In spite of the conditions of intolerance and persecution of the Mormons --even burning of homes and killing their occupants in the outlying areas and the constant threat of attacking the city itself by the mobs,  the Saints continued feverishly working on completing the Temple.
Brigham Young literally posted armed guards around the Temple to protect the workmen.
Completing the Temple was a great sacrifice of expense --but mostly of time -- because they were also building wagons and preparing to get outfitted to leave for the west.
What would make them divert their efforts in preparing to leave, with finishing the Temple---(that they would be leaving anyway)?
To understand this may I relate an experience as I was serving in the Johnathan Browning home and gun shop last week.  I was giving a tour to about 12 people, most of them members, but some non-members of the Church. Johnathan Browning joined the Church in 1842, moving from Quincy (where he was Justice of the Peace, and a good friend of Abraham Lincoln). He had a gun shop here in Nauvoo,  where he invented the repeating rifle, which revolutionized firearms for the whole world.  On each rifle he sold, he placed a medallion on the stock that read: "Holiness to the Lord --our preservation".  He was a very solid member of the Church. He and his wife Elizabeth,  had a daughter born shortly after they moved to Nauvoo,  who lived only six weeks. They named her Emma, after Emma Smith.  Her death was a devastation to them as they loved her so much and thought she was lost to the family forever. They buried her in the back yard, and today there is a little white picket fence surrounding the small grave. I took the group to the back yard near the grave and discussed the feelings of the Browning family and the loss of their little Emma, and how each time Johnathan would come out to the back yard he would see the grave and looking up to the north he could see through the trees off in the distance (about 3/4 mile) up on the bluff, the temple construction. At first it could hardly be seen, but gradually the walls grew up above the trees. Not too long before Joseph died, he preached the doctrine of marriage for time and all eternity. At the time of the martyrdom (1844) the walls were about 1/2 way up. (to the round windows).  The thing that kept Johnathan going was knowing that once the Temple was finished he and Elizabeth could be sealed in the Temple, and little Emma would be sealed to them, and they would be together forever. Every day he would look up and see the building growing and nearing completion. Finally, the Temple was finished in 1846, and they were sealed.  Now they could leave Nauvoo with the comfort of leaving little Emma, but knowing their family was complete.  There was such a powerful Spirit present. Most of us were crying, but for joy, of knowing the truth of the principle being taught.
The Lord held the mobs at bay long enough for many of the Saints to receive the sealing Temple ordinances to prepare them to withstand the travails of the pioneer trek west.  They started across the Mississippi on Feb. 4, 1846 in freezing temperatures, but complete  faith in the Lord.
The Temple was the crowning achievement of Nauvoo, and the Saints could not leave until it was finished to endow them with the strength to carry on in the trials ahead.
  We are having many such experiences as this, almost daily.
We are loving our mission and thank you for your support and prayers.
We miss you but feel the Lord is protecting and supporting you in our absence as well.
All our love to you all.