Cross Country Trip Field Notes: Day 6

Today we visited Liberty Jail (where I again was glad I had been before since I spent the tour outside with Elsie Jane), Adam-ondi-Ahman, and Winter Quarters, Nebraska.

It was a day of detours. Nothing was exactly on our way. And then, we literally had to go an hour and a half out of our way when the freeway in Missouri and Iowa was completely shut down. After all the driving and so many late nights, I considered skipping the detour into downtown Omaha to visit Winter Quarters and just pressing forward, but I am so glad I didn't.

The Mormon Trail Visitor's Center lies adjacent to the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery in Nebraska, with the Winter Quarter's temple built on the same plot of land. Over 600 pioneers are buried there, but it is dedicated to all of the thousands who died along the route to Utah but were buried in shallow or unmarked graves. Our missionary tour guide told us that Elder Christofferson recently visited them there and told them that never had he visited another temple where he could sense such a constant presence of angels around it. Being there the spirit of the great Mormon exodus was enveloping.

Mia and Maggie both commented on how much they could feel the spirit as they learned about the pioneers who left all they had behind to walk West. They were amazed by their sacrifices and the miracles they witnessed. More than any other thing we have done as a family, I have felt my children's testimonies and understanding of the spirit grow on this trip.

As we pulled out of Omaha, our belongings in our car and McDonald's to eat along our way, Jeffrey and I discussed how life changing this week has been for us. It is hard to put into words, but it has been a humbling experience to visit so many sacred places, to follow the whole history and beginnings of the church, to reflect on so many miracle and visitations so much sacrifice and precaution, and most of all to be inspired by so much faith.

Before I left our home in Virginia I felt a kinship to my forbearers who had also left behind beloved homes to travel West into the unknown. As we have made this trip and I have simultaneously learned and thought more on their experiences while facing my own sorrow, fears, and uncertainty, as well as hope and anticipation about this move, I have felt buoyed up in my own challenges and weaknesses by their faith. I have felt a deepening of my commitment and conviction to always be true to the gospel, to follow the Lord with exactness, and to never retreat from what I know to be right no matter how daunting it may appear.

What a remarkable blessing this experience has been to me. How humbled I am to admit that I would not have grown as much nor likely have had the same powerful, spiritual experiences if all had happened as I had hoped and we had sold our home and lined up a new one and put everything in order prior to leaving Virginia. Instead, once again, the Lord has blessed me by answering my prayers with a gentle rebuke to be patient and wait upon Him because He has greater things in mind for me than just appeasing my need to have everything go my way and happen in my timeframe; he is blessing me in far more nuanced and internally transformative ways, often through the very "trials" that I pray so fervently to have removed.