Our Apartment

It's not very fancy, but for now it is home!  Our apartment is in a very small complex within walking distance of  the Visitor Center and The Square in Independence.  We are second to the end on the left.

I found some pots in our garage and decided to garden.  Tomatoes, basil and verbena to brighten things up.

Here is our view from the porch.

Does this couch seem familiar?  Yes, it is the same as in many church foyers.

All senior missionary apartments are equipped with a recliner or two.  We need it!

More about the apartment later.

Burlington Iowa

I have been doing a lot of family history research since we have been here and Burlington, Iowa is a place where many of  my Grandma Crocker 's family lived.  Grandma (Jeannette Pauline Huss) was born in Burlington and it is less than 30 miles from Nauvoo.  We had to go!  

   From census records I found addresses of where family lived. One family home is now a parking lot, another is an apartment complex.  But here is the house where grandma's father grew up. 

 

And here is the Catholic Church where many family weddings, funerals, baby baptisms and Sunday worship took place.  It is only a few blocks away from the house we found.

 

 

We also found the cemetery where many ancestors are buried.  We were not able to find any family graves though.

 

 

I wish we could have found more, but it was awesome to see where some of our ancestors lived.  Grandma Crocker' father was a tinner in a stove store in Burlington .  (I think that would be a tinsmith.)  She and her parents lived one block down from her grandparents.

A Trip to Nauvoo

Senior missionaries from our mission are allowed to make one trip to Nauvoo during our time in Missouri.  We drove first to St Louis.  We saw the arch from afar, And stopped at the St Louis Temple before heading north to Nauvoo.

 

 

Nauvoo is such a fun place to visit! We attended the temple, took a horse drawn wagon ride, saw a live show and toured lots of houses.

 

   

One of my favorite places was the 1840's Lyon Drug Store.

 

 

A Visit from Family

Janice and John and kids were able to stop on their way to and from a family wedding.  We played at the park.

 

 

Visited the model trains at Union Station, then had our dinner delivered by train at Fritz's.

 

  

Of course we needed a photo by the Lego people!

 

Tour of Adam-ondi-Ahman and Far West

A couple of times per year the young sister missionaries get to spend a day touring the church historical sites of Adam-ondi-Ahman and Far West.  We were able to tag along recently. 

We drove through many closed gates.  Toby helped with the gates.

 

Her we are at the Far West monument.  That's the back of me with the dark red sweater.

 

It was a fun and long day.

A Few Other Things

We attended a full performance of "The Messiah" at the Stone Church.  The music and the church were fantastic!

 

 

We used our free Zoo pass one day that the Archives were closed.  

 

These birds were all over us when we offered bird seed.

 

The tv show Ninja Warrior was filmed at Union Station one week.  We monitored the set being built on our lunchtime walks.  Union station is next door to the Archives where we work.

 

Friends Visit

In March we had old friends from Sammamish come and stay with us for a few days.  We drove to Far West, the Amish village of Jamesport, and Adam-ondi-Ahman.

 

Another day we saw the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and had to go for barbecue at the famous Joe's KC.  The Z-man was yum! We 

 

  

We sure enjoyed their visit!