This is the season we express gratitude for our blessings and for the Savior and the Prophet Joseph Smith’s births. Nauvoo, Illinois, reminds us of the Prophet Joseph and the sacrifices, sorrows, courage, and faith of the early Saints—and is one of our blessings. Each night in the Nauvoo Pageant, Parley P. Pratt informs his audience, “Nothing could erase what Nauvoo had given us.”
Nauvoo is pivotal to LDS history. It provided a refuge for early members of the Church and became the Church’s religious, governmental, and cultural center between 1839 and 1846. Most importantly, eternal temple ordinances were administered in a beautiful temple built through sacrifice and faith. Yet, mobs harassed the Saints, killed the Prophet, and made it impossible to live in the “city beautiful.” After the Saints moved west, Nauvoo faded into a small farming community.
Many early Saints considered Nauvoo a sacred place, and they passed down their memories to their children and their children’s children. Missionary efforts originating in Nauvoo led to worldwide church membership. “My own ancestors were living an ocean away,” President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said. “But as a member of the Church, I claim with gratitude and pride this pioneer legacy as my own.” Through this spiritual ancestry, every member of the Church can feel kinship to the early Saints and experience the blessings of Nauvoo.
With restored historic buildings and a temple again on the hill, every church member needs to have a Nauvoo experience as President Gordon B. Hinckley said. Nauvoo is a place to make connections and feel the spirit of then and now. Two women—one a resident of Nauvoo and the other a full-time missionary—express their feelings of gratitude for their Nauvoo blessings.
A Grateful Resident
After Gerri Pack’s husband completed law school, he and Gerri moved to Nauvoo with their five daughters. Gerri’s husband wanted to open a law practice near an LDS temple, and the Nauvoo Temple had recently been announced. Little did Gerri realize what the next few years in Nauvoo would be. Her husband filed for divorce and left his family.
“The Saints in Nauvoo stepped in and took care of us,” Gerri remembered. “I had a job to meet my financial obligations, but people gave me a car and other help. Members of the ward put a new roof on our leaky house. While they were fixing the roof, a brother stuck his leg through our deck, so the deck had to be repaired. One room in our house had no footings, and it sunk down five inches. Ward members raised the room so it wouldn’t fall off the house.” During these challenging times, Gerri thought of the early pioneers who helped immigrants in Nauvoo.
“Non-member neighbors and friends also gave support,” Gerri said. When her young daughter, Becca, needed a bike repair, she went across the street and asked their neighbor Tom if he was a fix-it man. “What do you need fixed?” Tom asked. Becca told him about her bike, and Tom said, “I’m a fix-it man.” Besides helping with repairs, Tom gave the family apples from his trees. “Members and nonmembers accepted us in Nauvoo. Being a small town, people look out for each other,” Gerri said.
How did Gerri face these challenges without becoming resentful or bitter? “I read the scriptures, prayed, and relied on Heavenly Father and the Savior’s Atonement. Sherry Dew said that the Lord will carry our burdens but not our baggage. I actually prayed for my ex-husband and asked Heavenly Father to bless him. I realized that my ex- was the one who lost out. I have it all—my girls, a beautiful place to live, friends in Nauvoo.”
Attending the Nauvoo Temple “almost every day gave me strength to get through my divorce. I know I have my temple blessings and my girls forever.” Gerri learned that her Nauvoo ancestors, John and Julia Pack, were friends of Joseph Smith, and they received temple ordinances in the Nauvoo Temple. They owned property across the street from Gerri’s present home. “I can walk across the street and say my ancestors lived here,” Gerri said. “Knowing how strong they were helps me to be strong.” John Pack was one of the first pioneers who entered the Salt Lake Valley, and he and Julia remained stalwart church members throughout their lives.
“I have lots of frogs,” Gerri said. “I even have a frog hanging from the mirror in my car to remind me that I have to rely on Heavenly Father and the Savior. FROG stands for ‘Fully Rely on God.’” Gerri’s Nauvoo’s ancestors were frog owners, too, and she is remembering their example.
A Missionary’s Nauvoo Blessings
Sister Marcia Geilmann is currently serving a full-time mission in the Illinois Nauvoo Mission. Besides participating in “Rendezvous,” “Sunset by the Mississippi,” and various historical sites, Sister Geilmann spends three days a week at the Land and Records Center researching individuals who lived in Nauvoo during the Mormon period (1839-1846).
“As I read their stories and feel their testimonies come through the pages, I feel blessed to spend time with thousands of early Saints. They want their stories told, they want their testimonies shared, they want their legacy remembered,” Sister Geilmann said. These early residents “shared a kinship with the Workmans and the Chadwicks,” Sister Geilmann’s Nauvoo ancestors, “and they continue to share a kinship with me.” John and Lydia Workman owned a farm four miles east of Nauvoo. Their sons, Stephen (13) and Solomon (11), died and were buried in the Old Pioneer Cemetery in October of 1843. Two years later, Lydia Workman died, and daughter Hannah married James Chadwick.
During the re-enactment of the exodus from Nauvoo in February, Sister Geilmann represented her ancestor, Hannah Workman Chadwick. “As I walked in her behalf, I pondered what it must have felt like for her to make that journey into the unknown. . . . But Hannah continued on in faith. As I made that walk down Parley Street, somehow I understood her better and she was no longer a name on a genealogy sheet, but was a real person with real feelings and real dedication.”
“There’s a line in the Nauvoo Pageant that says, ‘You know us, and we know you.’ My great-grandfather, John Workman, gave up 3,000 acres in Tennessee to come to Nauvoo to gather with the Saints. He endured much persecution, so much so that my great-grandmother, Lydia, died because of that persecution. I know those stories, but I also feel like they know my story, and they know me.”
Nauvoo Blessings of “Sister G”
Because Sister Geilmann served four summers with the Nauvoo Pageant, she felt she was coming home when she was called as a full-time missionary in Nauvoo.
From 2006 through 2009, Marcia Geilmann was the director of the Pageant’s Family Support Team, “which meant that when parents were on stage and children were not, we provided activities and snacks for the children. We also taught them in their own missionary meeting while parents were receiving instructions, and we helped the younger children learn the pageant songs.” The children called Marcia Geilmann “Sister G.”
Sister G felt the spirit of then-and-now Nauvoo as she helped pageant children learn about their spiritual ancestry and as the children taught her. One night “Erin, about two years old, had not been picked up by her parents to go on stage for the finale. When Erin heard ‘The Spirit of God,’ she stood up and began singing with all of her heart. She stood still as still until it was time to move, and she made herself as big as she could to fill her stage of one. She raised her arms when her little lungs could hold the note no longer. Erin had no audience—or she thought she had no audience—for she was behind the stage, but it was her part, and she gave her very best.”
Sister G often felt the blessings of then-and-now Nauvoo as she served Pageant children. One afternoon, Sister G was teaching “when it began to get exceptionally dark outside. In fact, the darkness loomed so thick, it caused the children to keep looking back through the windows at the storm that was coming.” Sister G felt impressed to have a prayer, but she ignored it. After second and third promptings, Sister G listened.
“I reminded the children of the line from the Pageant in which Joseph says, ‘You can go home, brethren. The Lord has heard that boy’s prayer’” when Nauvoo brethren were guarding the Prophet one night and Joseph heard a boy pray for his safety. Sister G asked if the children wanted to pray. “With no further notice, 45 children were kneeling at their chairs.”
The little girl saying the prayer asked Heavenly Father to stop the rain so the Pageant could continue. “But the next line surprised and humbled me: ‘So we can bear our testimonies and bring people to Christ.’” At the conclusion of the prayer, one of the boys asked if they could sing. While singing Primary songs, “we literally watched the storm move and the rain stop.”
A similar incident occurred the next week when Sister G met with children of a different cast and their parents attended an orientation meeting. “The storm came in. The children were frightened, but this time I didn’t need to be prompted three times to have prayer. I asked if the children would like to pray, and, again, 45 children were on their knees.” The boy “didn’t know what had been said the week before, but the amazing thing was that he uttered exactly the same prayer as the little girl had the week before.
“Later that day, I was standing in line in the lunch room, and one of the fathers from the week before approached me. ‘The kids prayed again, didn’t they?’” Sister G asked him how he knew, and the father said, “The rain stopped as quickly as it started.” “You can go home, brethren. The Lord has heard that boy’s prayer.”
Nauvoo Blessings Then and Now
The blessings of Nauvoo then and now encourage us—wherever we live in the world—to seek out our own “Nauvoo” to commune with God and fully rely on Him and to “walk down Parley Street” and connect with ancestors and descendants. The Nauvoo Pageant tells us, ”You know us, and we know you. For we are all one family, children of our Heavenly Father, beloved in His sight, each one of us. This then is the story of Nauvoo.” It is one of our gratitude blessings.
