Another Day of Driving

We woke up in Independence Missouri.  There are some LDS church history sites that we wanted to see, so we got an early start and looked around on our own since most things were closed.

In the area of the Temple lot, there are several churches.  The Stone Church, the Church of the Temple Lot, The RLDS Church, the Church of Christ, there might have even been more than that.  There was a group of people out in the middle of the Temple Lot field who meet there every morning from 6-8 to pray.  They belong to several different faiths, but they all believe that a day will come when people will be united in Christ and we will all meet there.  We talked to them a bit and they prayed for us, and especially Steve as he goes off on his journey to South Korea.  They were really nice and completely committed to their religion.  They held a version of the Book of Mormon (one that I had never seen) in their hands and talked about us all being "restorationists".  They invited us to come and pray with them any time we were ever in the area again.  When they asked when we were planning to "gather", it was as if they were genuinely surprised that we didn't have an immediate plan.  Super nice people, but I'm not sure if I'll find myself "gathering" in Missouri any time soon.

We ended up visiting with those people and walking around long enough that the LDS Visitor's center opened up and we went in for a little while.  I remember touring this area when I was just out of high school.  We were guided through the RLDS temple by a woman who said she held the priesthood, and saw some of the things they had from Joseph Smith's family.  Then, we went across the street to the LDS Visitor's Center.  We heard a recording of scripture as we looked up at the statue of Christ, and I remember feeling the Spirit testify of the truthfulness of the things I was hearing.  It was a contrast of what I had just seen in the RLDS temple.  I remembered that experience still, so I looked forward to hearing that again.  The Patriarch that gave Steve and I our blessings has a deep and calming voice and he is the voice of many of the things that the church does.  His voice plays in this room, and we sat and looked at the Savior as we heard him speak.  The scripture at the end was John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
My dad always made us sing Love One Another at every FHE and gathering.  It became comical as we were kids, and then after he died it was really neat to see how many times that song was played at special events where we were missing Dad.  Steve and I both thought it was really neat to hear that scripture and then listen as the Sister missionary testified about families and the strength we can have as we work together.  We walked away feeling like we had a tender mercy from Heaven.  A reminder that both our Father in Heaven, and our dad were mindful of the things going on in our little Johnson family right now.  That they are pulling for us and want us to succeed and that they want us to stay united as a family and support and love each other.  It was really neat, and something I am grateful we got to experience together.

Our next stop was Liberty Jail.

The church bought the jail and then built a visitor center over it.  This has all been reconstructed, but it is built to scale and the stone floor is original.

Some really beautiful verses of scripture came from the time that Joseph was imprisoned in Liberty Jail.  It is a reminder that we grow more in trials than we do without them.
We hopped back in the car and continued on our drive.  Our brother Warren called and told us we could stay at his house in Colorado that night if we wanted to.  We were going to drive through Nebraska and Wyoming on a different route, but it seemed silly to be so close and not go to his house, so we changed our plans.  We drove through Kansas.  I wasn't quick enough on the draw and didn't get a picture of that state sign.
I enjoyed hearing Steve's dreams of building a place that looked like an old broken down farm on the outside, but inside it's new and modern with all sorts of cool gadgets.  It is complete with a place to hide his boat and a lake to ski on as often as he wants...all completely hidden from the unsuspecting world outside.  :)
We also started listening to Educated.  That book kept us entertained for hours.  We had all sorts of conversations as we listened and couldn't believe that something like that could happen in this modern world and somewhere so close to where I live.  It's a book to read for sure.

As we drove into Colorado, the skies began to darken.

We started to see people pulling over to the side of the road.  When we passed overpasses, there were cars huddled under them.  We started to worry that they might know something about this storm that we didn't know.

I wish the pictures could really convey what things looked like.  We called one of Steve's friends that lives in Kansas (just a few miles behind us), and he said they were probably pulling over for a tornado warning.  As we were on the phone with him, the rain was falling so hard it seemed like it would break the windshield. 
We drove right through the storm in a matter of 15 minutes or so and we began to see blue skies again.  It was nice to leave those dark clouds behind us.

We got to Warren's house safely and had fun catching up with the kiddos. We watched funny clips on youtube and had fun listening to music.  It seemed wrong being there without my kiddos to play with cousins. 
We went to sleep after another long day of driving miles and miles and using up gallons and gallons of gas.  :)