Day four; Thursday, July 3rd, 2014

We started out the day with a long drive to Winter Quarters. There is a cemetery right by the Winter Quarters temple. The temple is really kind of part of the cemetery; the beautiful part of death.

a very beautiful temple

There is a beautiful, and tragic depiction of a wife and her man burying their little baby.

at their feet, in an open grave, is their little sweetheart

On the back, you can see the roots of the gospel planted firmly in their sacrifice.

The stories, the graves, and the whole spirit of the place were so overwhelming that I could not help crying – not that I didn’t want to. It felt right to ‘shed a tear or two’ for those who died and sacrificed all here.

there is a sad looking girl! I had to include this pic...it is the only one of me the whole day.

Oh, look, we found another one (at least I'm in front of the bars): 

There was the story of a man who left Nauvoo with all eight members of the family. After Winter Quarters, he was alone. All of his family is buried there. He is buried by himself in the Salt Lake Valley.

Most lost loved ones, and several other people lost entire families. One such man said, “I have lost everything of value to me in the world”. He still persevered in the cause of the gospel. What a price! Truly they walked a path of pain, and traveled a trail of tears.

We also went to a visitor’s center. 

our own mama and baby

Elegant by a picture of the old Nauvoo temple

It was one of the cooler ones. We had a lot of fun playing with the dress-ups.

our pioneer children

Expressive

A sister missionary put two tiny little stones in front of the wheels of the empty handcart, and let the people pictured above try to pull it over the stones. They couldn’t do it until Auntie, myself, and the sister missionary helped. It was hard!

pull, boy, pull!

Then we went to Grandpa’s hotel and went swimming again. 

After swimming, Raconteur, Rough, and I got banished out on the grass while Mom and Radiant tried to get the little ones in bed.

 As we were watching, we kept seeing these flashes of light (and no, they were not fireworks; though there have been a LOT of those lately). We went closer to see what they are and…

...I couldn’t believe it! They were FIREFLIES!!!! I have read countless mentions of them, but I, being from Utah, thought they were extinct or something. 

We caught some. The boys had a grand plan of catching several hundred and putting them in a container and using them for a nightlight.

I tried to point out that #1, they would die, #2, you couldn't turn them off, and #3, it would take forever. 

Despite my logic, only being called into bed dissuaded them.

Boys (sigh).                                 

And so ended another day.