The Second Month

Could my time here in Nauvoo have gotten any better? Yes. It could. And it did.

So my last post ended with me getting transferred out to Carthage. It's about a half hour outside of Nauvoo (a six hour horse ride for Joseph Smith back then). We lived in a house, divided into four apartments, within walking distance of the jail. The jail is original, never rebuilt or moved. We got to clean the outside stone walls for the first time in 100 years, so now it sparkles. I'm not going to tell you all about it because y'all need to come and see it. One tough thing about living 30 minutes from Nauvoo was we had to leave extra early for everything. Church here is at 8:00 am so we would have to leave the house by 6:50 to get there by 7:30 because the sisters have to be there a half hour early. I had to get up around 5:15two or three times a week.

One of my goals, coming on my mission, was to have a stronger testimony of Joseph Smith. When I told President that, he laughed and said 'You'll get that here, don't even worry about it'. He was right. (I am coming to learn that he is always right). There wasn't an exact day or turning point where I was like, 'Wow, Joseph Smith was a prophet'; it came so gradually that I didn't even notice. Well, that's kind of a lie. About a month into being there at Carthage, I was home studying. I read something about how we as missionaries should tell investigators how we, ourselves, came to know that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I realized I had never prayed about it, so I decided to do it right then and there. I went in my room and knelt, praying, kind of bawling the whole time while I was telling God why I had come on a mission and how I needed to know, without doubt, if this was true, because I could not and would not tell people lies. Then I asked the million-dollar question: "Was Joseph Smith a prophet?" And immediately- and I mean immediately- I stopped crying and I felt this peace and stillness in my heart. The thought came to my mind, 'You know it already'. So I was able to say, with complete surety, in all the remainder of my tours at Carthage and even up until now, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God.

Some other cool experiences happened at Carthage, too. One time, I was taking a middle-aged couple into the video room (there's an 18-minute video before the 20-25 minute tour of the jail) and I asked if they had anyone else coming with them. The woman said "Well, our sons are outside. See if you can talk to them. They're a bit lost." I knew she didn't mean physically lost. I went outside and talked to them, they were 15 and 17. They immediately asked if their mom had sent me to get them and, pfft, of course I lied and said "No! I just wanted to talk to you guys." They said that God punishes liars :) hahahaha. It took some convincing but they finally joined the tour with their parents. So we get up to the Martyrdom room, I play the tape, and the time comes for me to testify at the end. All I could think about during the tape was the Atonement and repentance. So I testified on that. I told them how the gospel had turned my life around and that no purer happiness could come from anything else. It was much more moving and eloquently stated than that- probably because it was the Spirit speaking, not me. The tour ends and I'm at the bottom of the stairs, holding the door open for everyone as they left. The dad stopped, tearfully looked me in the eyes, and said "Thank you for your testimony. That's exactly what my boys needed to hear. They have some things they need to change in their lives. Thank you." and left. Those kinds of moments are what make missionary work worth it. 

And it seems like most of my spiritual experiences happen with people who are already LDS. There was a family that came in one day- I think it was the grandparents, their two daughters, and the daughters' four kids (two and two, respectively). It was my turn to have a tour- the last tour of the day- so I walk up to greet them and, oh my goodness, this family was not going to be entertained. My jokes only resulted in a polite chuckle, MAYBE. I hurry and put them in the video room and go pray, asking for charity to love this family and to give them a good experience. We go through the tour, the kids are angels (they are between like 7 and 12 I guessed), and finally we get to the Martyrdom room (have you noticed a theme here with this room? Yeah). The tape plays, I testify, it's all fine and dandy and normal. I go to open the door when I realize that, because the tour is just one family, they're all members, and it's the last tour of the day, we have time to have a little testimony meeting in there which we can't normally do. So I close the door and tell them that, and I wait for a few minutes in (semi-awkward) silence. Then I thank them for coming and go to open the door when someone pipes up and gives a short and simple testimony. That opened the floodgates for everyone else. I sat back down and it became a full-blown testimony meeting. The next thing I know, everybody including all four kids are crying- I had never seen kids cry from the spirit like that before. We were there for quite a while before we had to leave. Outside, the grandma told me that all of them had been praying for the kids to have a spiritual experience on their Nauvoo trip. The next three days on Pageant grounds, the kids looked for and found me every time. :) It was so sweet. The last day of Pageant, they found me early and I was torn between wanting to talk to them and doing my missionary duties, so I invited them to be mini missionaries with me. We went up and talked with people, asked for referrals, all that jazz. A couple days ago, I got a letter from the 12 year old girl saying she's thinking about going on a mission and she wants to be "just like you because you are so nice and kind". MELT MY HEART WHY DON'T YOU. 

One more Martyrdom Room story. The tape we play, towards the end, describes the events that happened in there- who got shot and how, basically. So my companion, Sister Searle, and I, are in there and the tape is going and there's this little girl, probably about 5 years old, sitting on the bench front and center. She's the type that doesn't like holding still but knows she'll get in trouble if she doesn't. So the tape starts describing the shots and she starts acting it out. With every shot, she silently screams in pain. She's falling over from the blows. "Willard Richards looks out the window..." and she looks out a pretend window. Sister Searle and I are trying our hardest to not laugh. She gets bored with this and starts swinging her legs under the bench, when out of nowhere, the bench entirely flips over on top of her. Her mom rushes over and rights the bench, scooping up the sniffling little girl who is trying to keep her cries of surprise under control. The tape ends soon after this and a non-member, who has been a little sketchy the entire tour and witnesses all of this, immediately gets up, says "I gotta get outta here" speed-walks to the door, and evacuates the building. It was quite the memorable experience.

Well, that's all, folks. I'll have more time next week! Trust me, I'll have more stories to tell. ;)