Seven Day Summer Road Trip

I just had a great little summer road trip with my mom and my sister Lou. We flew into Kansas City, Missouri and headed on our little LDS church history tour. The tour guide...myself. Our first stop was Independence. What a great little city with a fun little facts about our amazing church. We found this great little candy store and Mike the owner made us fresh cotton candy. It was also amazing to see the LDS visitors center across from the Community of Christ and the Church of Christ. I loved learning about both of these other religions and it made my testimony grow even stronger.

Day two...Liberty Jail. It was super amazing and such a good spirit. I also learned that my fifth great grandmother was one of the women to prepare food for the Prophet and others while they were in the jail. Stop two....Far West...what a beautiful place this was, definitely a holy land. It was great to see the corner stones of the temple lot. Stop three Adam-ondi-Ahman...wow so beautiful. Pictures do not do this place justice. We then drove through cute Jamesport a little Amish community and spent the night in Chillicothe.

Day three...Hannibal...home town to Mark Twain (okay Samuel Clemens). We road the Mark Twain riverboat up and down the Mississippi. I also found a cute antique shop and spent a little too much money on a great 1910 circa steamer trunk( Oh Fiddlesticks)We then left and headed to beautiful Nauvoo. This town is amazing. So much to see, do and learn. The whole place has such a sweet spirit. It was just another testimony to me on why I love the church. The pageant was super great, along with all the other shows...almost Broadway worthy and they are FREE!!!

The temple was probably the highlight of my time in Nauvoo. I loved the history and the story of the temple and loved the inside.

We spent three nights in Nauvoo and still didn't get to do and see everything.

St.Louis was our next stop. I price lined the hotel and we had a great four star room at the Hilton downtown. It was by far the nicest place we stayed and the cheapest...even with the $18 a night parking. We were two blocks from the amazing Gateway Arch. In a pod and up a tram 630 feet to the top of the arch. It was a little freaky at the top but so worth the ten dollars we spent. The next day we found a church and hit the St. Louis Zoo. Its was free also and it was a super awesome zoo. We had fun acting like zebra's, monkeys and bears. Or maybe a Tizard, Girabbit and a Hornelphant ( inside joke, right Lou?) We then went to the Delmar Loop ranked one of the top ten streets in America. A fun little place with lots of fun shops and vintage clothes. I scored a super cute timeless dress.

We then meet Pat. Our friend Pat from Arizona, he took our picture in front of Busch Stadium and then joined us for dinner. He is retired from the military and before we knew it it paid for our dinner, said thanks and to pray for our troops and left. What a nice kind stranger. Our last day in St. Louis we went on a free tour of the Budweiser Plant, not originally in our church history plans but super interesting non the less.

So overall I had a great time and didn't spend as much money as I thought. I loved every moment and was glad to share it with my mom and sister. My heart is full for the love of our early saints who came and paved the way before me. I know more than ever that the church is true. Life is great! Even if my summer is slowly coming to an end.

summer days

I have had the opportunity to serve a couple times at the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. I am so excited to have a new temple five miles away. The temple is absolutely beautiful inside and out. Today I worked the 11-4 shift and was helping with transportation and parking. I actually got to greet every car as it came in and I couldn't believe where people came from. California, New York, Iowa, Canada, Texas, Washington, and Colorado just to name a few. I have three temples that I can see from my back porch, I seriously am so blessed.

I had a slumber party with my niece again. We had such a good time and she says the funniest things. For example, her mom asked her if she slept good, her reply." I didn't get any sleep because aunt Amy was snoring so loud." I admit I could have been snoring, but she did sleep at least until 6:15 when she woke up...super early. Then she was in my closet and asked if she could try on my shoes. She picked out this gold pair and then asked if she could try walking int them, and then said these almost fit. I laughed. She walked over to my mirror and then came back for another pair. This pair was white patented leather, she then asked me if those were my wedding shoes, because they looked like glass slippers. It was so cute, she would then walk over to my mirror and admire them, take them off and then back for another pair. When she was done I had about ten pairs in front of my mirror, and her favorite were the pink pair of glass slippers. I knew I owned alot of shoes, but I never knew I owned that many pairs of glass slippers.