This ugly building with the top that looks like a snow cone cup unraveling is the RLDS, now renamed Community of Christ's, Temple/International Headquarters. We went ahead and went on inside. It looked pretty much like a High School inside. Their daily prayer meeting was starting so I went in and had a seat. It was deathly quiet, with only about 12 people inside. We heard 5 gong's that I to this day don't know where they came from, had a strange 5 minute prayer meeting. They pray for one country each day, and that day just happened to be Niger Africa. They read a few facts about it, and it sounded like they came right out of the Encyclopedia, we had a minute of silence, sang a weird song, 5 more gongs, and we were out of there. The service lasted about 12 minutes.It may not be the true church, but they do get credit for promptness!
This is the door on the outside of the Liberty jail. This is also the original wall, and the only one left standing.
This is what is left of the Jail where Joseph Smith and a few others were kept for just a little over 4 months. It was winter time, and I'm sure they froze. How horrible for them. The jailer stayed in the top part, and the prisoners were put in the lower part through the square in the floor. If you look on the right side of this picture you can see how it was built. The inside walls were wood, the outside wall was rock (I believe limestone but don't quote me on that) and the place in between those walls they filled with smaller rocks. That was so just in case the prisoners tried to dig through the wood part of the wall, the other rocks would fall inside and alert the jailer.
This is the final resting place for Joseph, Emma, and Hyrum Smith. After Joseph and Hyrum were killed, they buried the bodies underneath the unfinished Nauvoo House, and then reburied under an outbuilding on the Smith homestead. At the funeral they used empty coffins with sandbags inside to prevent theft or mutilation of the bodies. In 1928, an excavator was hired to find the bodies. He found Joseph, Hyrum and Emma, and they were finally laid to rest here, near the Mississippi River.
This statue is across the street from the Nauvoo temple. The plaque underneath it says this:
"The Prophets Last Ride"
On the morning of June 24, 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum left their families, homes, and fellow saints for the last time. Traveling on horseback, they paused on this bluff. Joseph looked admiringly at the unfinished temple and the city of Nauvoo and declared:
This is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens; little do they know the trials that await them.
Joesph and Hyrum then continued on to Carthage, Illinois, where they faced legal charges and eventual death at the hands of a mob.
