A Walk In Nauvoo 1980 and 2010

The sun has just set in the west over that magnificent river the Mississippi. The air outside is heavy, entrapped with the humidity of the day, almost thick enough to reach out and hold in your hand. Off in the distance, across the acres of fresh mowed grass, just beyond a small grove of trees a faint tune is heard. The notes waver and fluctuate as the breeze stirs them while they travel. As you strain to hear the melody a subtle feeling comes over you suggesting that the notes have been carried on the wind from a time long ago. As you walk to determine their source, fire-flies dance along the path in front of you, their random glowing trails magically bring to life feelings that have been captured or frozen in time. The tune growing ever stronger and more clear, now echo the feelings of the struggles of a people many years before, words of a song that at the time came as encouragement, “Come , come, ye saints, No toil nor labor fear…”. Now faintly into my view come two Elders, returning home from a late evening at the Nauvoo Visitors Center. A deep reverence permeates the air and warm chills run up my spine. This time just before night, when the sun has set but darkness has not yet reigned as the authority, an unexplainable light suddenly fills my person. The light or feeling declares to my spirit that the stories of this small isolated city, the City of Nauvoo, are true and just waiting to be told. A prophet of God, Joseph Smith, the prophet of the restoration walked this same road.

                                                                                                         - Quinn Redmond

            For eighteen privileged Elders, called to a “Special Mission” from surrounding missions, missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, under the leadership of President J. Leroy Kimball in the summer of 1980, this city was affectionately theirs. Given the responsibility to tell the story of those who once lived and walked these streets and to announce that the heavens are open. This city was theirs for the purpose of testifying of this great truth. A prophet called and the true church restored.

“Have you ever seen such an evening? Have you ever seen such a sky? Have you ever felt so peaceful inside? Neither have I. Have you noticed that old river so quietly sliding by? Have you ever seen the grass so green? Neither have I.” – (The City of Joseph Pageant Theme Song)

 

 

Redmond