Mormon Battalion Historic Site

On Sunday we went to church and it was testimony meeting. A woman bore her testimony about gratitude for the love she felt from the Ward members when she and her husband had a hardship in the previous week. Then she recounted the story of how a car smashed into their house, burst into flames, and burned their house down. I thought how that would really constitute a bad day. I was grateful, my feeling being very close to the surface for other reasons, that I could say the same things she was saying about the love she felt from her neighbors if a car hit my house and burned it to the ground. I am grateful for where I live and for the friends and neighbors we have around us. And I was grateful to know that those same kinds of people live everywhere. It was a blessing to be able to attend church.

After church we packed up and checked out of our hotel. We headed over to see the Mormon Battalion Visitor's Center. Kae and Brett took their family there earlier this summer and I thought it looked pretty cool. I have to say that Natalee had a blast. She didn't want to leave. She got to get dressed up, play a fiddle, pan for gold, wash clothes and use a water pump. It was awesome and the church has done a magnificent job with the new renovations. We watched a great film and heard some awesome things that came out of the Mormon involvement in the Mexican War. I have ancestors that were in the Battalion, so it was wonderful to hear more of what they might have gone through.

We asked a senior missionary to take our picture in this covered wagon. He took one that was horribly blurry (worse than this one). Then he handed it to us to make sure we liked it. Nathan asked him to take another one and he said, "Oh, did I not do a good job on the first one?" How do you say, "Nope, it sucked" to a senior missionary? We didn't have the heart to ask him for a third. Maybe we look better blurry?