Our Trail of Hope

What a glorious day! Low humidity, clear skies, a wonderful way to complete our Nauvoo experience. I woke early and took Dad down to see the Trail of Hope vignette we had done on Thursday. When we arrived at the station where Charly was, it hit me that this was my last day in Nauvoo. We were leaving under much better circumstances than did the early saints, certainly, but we have grown to love this place and love the people we have met. Like them, we face an uncertain future but will do so with faith and the joy of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our hearts made firm by the covenants we have made in his Holy House.

Charly portrayed a person with the name of Sally Randall. Dad and I wondered if she could be related to our Randalls. Dad's grandmother's maiden name is Randall. Well, we headed to the Land and Records center and started looking up names. We found my triple great grandfather, Alfred Randall. All of a sudden we found histories that we had never known before. He was baptized early in the history of the church by Elder Orson Hyde. He recalled helping to clear the ground in Kirtland for the temple and helped build the one in Nauvoo as well. He was ordained an elder and assigned to be in the Qurorum of the Seventy by Heber C. Kimball, another of the twelve apostles. We then read how he accompanied Joseph Smith when he was taken to Carthage. He heard the threats of murder from the crowd and went to the Governor, to no avail. It recounts how he was forced out of the jail, down the back steps on the point of a bayonet. I recalled the feelings I had personally of standing as a witness to this event and realized that my ancestor had actually done the same. I recall the words of the pageant, "When you are here, we are here," and I felt close to heaven and close to family.

In the afternoon we went to another vignette portraying how the early saints left to go on missions all over the world. A powerful spirit of love and dedication came over us. With such feelings in our hearts we headed to the chapel for our cast testimony meeting. I knew I needed to express some of what I have been feeling inside. I stayed relatively composed, thankfully and then sat to be fed by our new dear friends and my family. Sterling, Devin and Rachael gave the most inspiring testimonies. As Rachael told of the ways in which she feels the Savior's love and how special that makes her feel, I cried tears of joy, knowing many of my prayers were being answered. Devin spoke of being humble and teachable and Sterling discussed how he was told he would be given strength in the blessing given by our bishop prior to our experience. He said that he didn't at first understand what that meant but felt he had gained understanding these last two weeks. I felt that I was the richest man in the world. What more could I want in life than to see that my children love the Lord and have felt his guiding influence?

With joy in our hearts for the experience we have had here, we performed for the last time. We stayed and talked long after, exchanging hugs, tears as well as emails. We knelt together as a cast thanking God for our blessings and in a blink of an eye, our experience was over and yet it is not. In the words of Robert Laird, "I've got a feeling, this is just the beginning." We will return home with a renewed determination to live life more fully, to love each other a little better, to be the Lord's disciple more fully. "Nothing can erase what Nauvoo has given us."