Spending time in Nauvoo was incredible! We lived near Palmyra, New York, for a year and got to visit all the Church history around there many times. I thought Nauvoo would be more of the same type of Church history -- not that that would be in any way bad, I just thought I would be seeing the type of stuff I had already seen before. I was totally wrong. Nauvoo is such a special, unique place. One thing I certainly didn't realize going into the trip was that Nauvoo is still a very very small city, and the layout of the city that the early Church members created is still completely intact. You can walk down all the same roads they did, and visit many of the shops and buildings they created (either the actual origianl building or restorations). Nauvoo was different than any other Church history we've done (Missouri, Ohio, New York) because the history is the entire city; you don't have to drive from point A and then drive to point B, you are literally experiencing Church history the entire time you are in the city. It made the sacrifice of the early Saints so much more real to be in the city they built, but had to abandon.
Visiting Carthage Jail was an amazing but heart-breaking experience. Carthage jail, being the place where Jospeh Smith and his older brother Hyrum were encarcerated when a mob stormed the jail and murdered them both, holds a lot of emotion. It was sureal standing next to and looking out the window Joseph tried to escape out of when he was shot twice in the back and twice in the chest and then collapsed through the window. It was similarly sureal looking at and touching the door that the mob shot down and broke through to get to them. The bullet whole is still in the door where a member of the mob shot Hyrum in the face, killing him nearly immediately. Visiting Carthage Jail was an unforgettable experience; my admiration for Jospeh and Hyrum was great but grew even more after seeing and envisioning the way they boldly and fearlessly left this world, standing by everything they had preached that led to their deaths.
