Nauvoo Temple

It was a pretty exciting time when the rebuilding of the Nauvoo temple was announced in 1999.  The Nauvoo Temple holds a special place in our hearts because we lived closeby in Kirksville, Missouri and were in Nauvoo at the time of the groundbreaking and cornerstone ceremony for the new temple.  The original temple was built by the saints who lived in Nauvoo in the 1840's but after they left for Utah, it was burned and then later destroyed by a tornado. 

We were in the Nauvoo stake while we lived in Missouri so we made regular trips to Nauvoo and got to see the temple as it went up again.  They built it in the exact same location with as close as possible to the original materials and floor plan as the original temple.  It wasn't quite finished when we moved away from Missouri so we never saw it completed. 

This was our first time back to Nauvoo since then which was about 9 years ago.  It was neat to see the finished temple, and even neater to go inside and go through a session with Candace and Aaron and my parents as well as some of our cast.  It is beautiful!  The architecture and wood work are amazing as well as the spirit that is there.  I couldn't get enough of the spiral/circular staircase.  I especially loved the blue star windows and the sunstones on the outside.  Because the temple president's daughter was in our cast, the temple president came and talked to us about the original temple and the rebuilding before we went through our session.    It was pretty neat.  Also, on our way out of the temple, we ran into Neil L. Andersen of the quorum of the twelve and got to shake his hand.  He spoke to us the following night at our cast meeting.

The temple really stands up on the hill and can be seen throughout the city.  It is a beacon of hope.  Every time I saw the temple, I wanted to take more pictures, but I'll share only a few of them here.

Here you can kind of see a sunstone and above a glimpse of the blue star windows

A better view of the sunstone and stars

The sculpture of Hyrum and Joseph on their horses was across the street from the temple looking toward the temple.

The clock tower

5 of us talking outside the temple.  The wind must have been blowing, but I don't remember it.

Here you can see the front and part of the side.

Same picture close up

In the front of the picture is the pageant stage.  This is the view of the temple from the stage just before it got dark.    This was taken on my phone so it's not as clear.

Near the end of the pageant each night, the temple would light up and we would all watch for it just before we went on stage for the finale.  It was cool.