Pioneer Unit 2020: Day 2

For our pioneer unit today, we built the Nauvoo Temple… out of legos.

The kids each got a lego temple for Christmas last year that they have been slowly building over the past 6 months.  Roxanne’s is the Nauvoo Temple so we decided to finish it up today for our unit since Thomas and Erastus (who Landon and Porter are representing this year) helped to build the real Nauvoo Temple in the 1840s.

Thomas Bingham

 

Erastus Bingham and his wife, Lucinda Gates

 

 

 

Before researching Thomas and Erastus, I didn’t know that any of my ancestors had helped build the Nauvoo Temple so that was pretty neat to discover.

The Nauvoo temple is really special for a lot of reasons, but particularly because this is the temple that Jershon and I got married in – and also the temple where I received my endowment.

 

A few of my pioneer ancestors received their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple as well and a couple at least were also sealed to their spouses there.

 

The Nauvoo Temple was built during a time of much persecution and hardship.  It was built through great sacrifice and faith.  

In 1846, after the temple was barely completed, the Saints were forced to leave Nauvoo.  In 1848 it was severely damaged by an arson fire and in 1850 the rest was destroyed by a tornado.

But in 2002, the Nauvoo Temple was rebuilt and modeled as closely as possible after the original.  There were several miracles that occurred in order for the temple to be reconstructed so precisely.    

 

 

When I was growing up in Missouri, we lived 2 hours away from Nauvoo.  A few men from our church congregation got to help with installing the wood floors in the Nauvoo Temple.  As with any flooring project, there are little extra scraps of wood that aren’t needed.  The men were able to keep these scraps and they gave them to the children in our congregation.  I love that I get to have my own piece of the Nauvoo Temple floor.  

 

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