Burning of the Prairie Grass

Prairie grass burn

Once a year the City of Nauvoo come and burn the prairie grass on an acre of land. It grows all year long and is the hiding place of animals. Nature cleanses and what is left is dark ash dirt. This is very fertle soil and is the beginning of new growth. So we experienced this occassion last Tuesday. This location is a block away from our house. Hope you enjoy.

Visiting the Heber C Kimball home, Nauvoo Ill,Ou in my pioneer dress. Feb 2011

I went to visit the Kimball in my pioneer dress after the RS reinactment. This is the living room.

Grandpa Kimball and me,
Marilyn Kimball Giles Peterson

Sister missionaries serving in Kimball Home.

Standing by Leroy Kimballs portrait in HCK's home.  He married us 47 years ago.
 Cousin of Mom, Marjorie Kimball Giles.

serving dinner at Grandma Kimballs house.

Our home in Nauvoo.  Elder Peterson. 

Pictures from the reinactment of the organization of the Relief Society, Feb, 2011.

 Our home on Munson Street, on the flats.

 Riding the carriage to the Red Brick Store where the Relief Society was organized.

 Heber C & Vilate Kimball's home on Munson.

 Going through Old Nauvoo.

 Eagle's nest by Old Brick Store.

 We poised for a picture.

 I had my pioneer boots on I found at the Post Office DI.

 Going in to serve at the temple.

Nauvoo, May 29,2011

May 29, 2011

Today we gave our sacrament meeting talks.  We had about 400 in attendance and it looked like a stake conference.  Many people, some we had not met before came up to us and tell us how much they enjoyed the talks.  I will attach them.  They liked the poems I got from Sister Tovey.  She came over a couple of weeks ago and gave me some of her old talks because she knew that I was under a lot of pressure with Jean Andersons’s death (going home to SL) and scheduling our shift each week from the beginning and everything else that was going on. 

While we were walking down Parley’s street with some other missionaries, we stopped to rest at the 70’s Hall.  Other people walked by and Sister Rees would ask them where they were from.  Then she proceeded to tell them that we were the ones that talked in church this morning.  They would say, “The Petersons?”  As we walked the streets of Nauvoo tonight we felt special and that people remembered our talk.  More and more people are asking for a copy of our talks and stories.

During our class time the sky got very dark and then it began to rain very hard.  When we finished up our block session, it was still raining but started to drop off.  We went to choir practice and then to the Arrival Center to meet with Brother Ord to have our pictures taken to add to the choir pictures that we previously missed.  While we were waiting for others to come, the security guard, Brother Stossel, told  us that he had been  watching the storm on the radar and when it got close to Nauvoo, it split and dispersed and broke up.   In his 20 years here in Nauvoo he has only had one time when it was close to a Tornado, but was not called a Tornado.  It just had high winds and took off the branches of the trees.   The recorder, Brother Marshal when he was told about the storm dispersing, said “Again”.

When the Nauvoo Temple was destroyed by a Tornado, it was not a working temple, and it had been defiled therefore it was not protected.  We have been told if we get those warnings of a siren, to go to the temple.

Winter Warriors Valentines Celebration 2011

Click here to view this photo book larger

Today, we celebrated the 169 anniversary of the organization of the RS. I borrowed a pioneer dress from Sis Barlow, a site missionary. It is a simple blue long sleeve long dress with a fitted waist. It was a little tight at the waist and I needed help zipping it up as we needed to push the material together. We all wore our dresses to work in the temple after the celebration. When I got ready to go home from our serve, we were let off a little early to come home and get the schedule finished, I was the only one in the Sisters' dressing room. Therefore, I couldn't get my dress zipped up. Luckly I brought my coat into the dressing room, so I just put my coat over it and walked out the door. We laughed.

Going back to the celebration, we met at the Visitors Center and the carriage was waiting to take us to the Red Brick Store where the Relief Society was original organized.

We walked through the store to the second floor. There we had a program about the organization and it started with a modern day sister visiting the Red Brick Store. She then imagined the character of Joseph Smith, John taylor and others as they organized it. I won't go into the story but the music was beautiful and the end made us all cry. I felt like I really wanted to know my grandmother Vilate Kimball and wondered what part she had played on that day. Where was she, what did she wear and what was going on in her life. At the end, the Sister saw her GG grandmother. They talked to each other and we all cried. I too wanted to talk to my GG grandmother.