I've been trying to write this post for awhile, but there's just no way to make our trip to Nebraska seem exciting. We went to Nebraska to go to temple #50, but we thought we should do other things as well. The Mormon Pioneer Museum is literally across the street, so there we went.
I like visiting church history sites because they are generally manned (womanned?) by Sister missionaries and/or senior missionaries, who are very willing to chat and usually think we're pretty interesting.
a model of what the Winter Quarters camp looked like
a model log cabin-- I'm sad we didn't take pictures inside, but we got distracted by the soundtrack
crossing the ole Mississip'
replica wagon
replica front half of the SLC temple
A major thing I liked about this visitor's center is that they talk very frankly about the turmoil the church faced following Joseph Smith's death. Sometimes people gloss over that. We told her about how, when we took the Community of Christ tour in Nauvoo, our tour guide made a big deal out of how much of a jerk Emma Smith thought Brigham Young was. I don't think our sister missionary knew how to respond, so she showed us a video about eternal families (which wasn't quite a punishment, but for a married couple without kids it didn't feel like much of a reward either).
Then we doubled back and went to the pioneer cemetery, which is right next to the temple.
at the entrance gate
There are not many gravestones that still exist, but there is this huge statue of a couple who have buried their child (at least, I'm about 98% certain that this was what the statue meant).
The statue is surrounded by the names of the people who were buried in the cemetery, scriptures, and song verses.
on the ground around the statue
Then we continued our church history tour by going across the river (on the Mormon Bridge, no less) to the Kanesville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Brigham Young was sustained as the second president of the church.
us with the second First Presidency
Inside the visitor's center we got to talk for a long time with the senior missionaries, as well as see a video about the Mormon Battalion and their influence on the move west.
a replica Mormon Battalion uniform
There are many things I didn't know about the Mormon Battalion, and there are many things I still don't know, but I look forward to learning more.
the replica Kaneville Tabernacle from the outside
the replica tabernacle from the inside
Finally, Josh wanted very badly to get a good Omaha steak, so he did his research and we ended up here:
The history of the restaurant is interesting, but the ambiance was very Italian Family. I can imagine that many of the people who work there are related. The absolute strangest thing, and I have such a hard time getting over the weirdness of it, was that we were seated near-ish to the women's restroom and apparently that was also the unofficial "break room" of the employees. So anyone who wanted to use the restroom had to weave their way through a bunch of servers and busboys who were hanging out, shooting the breeze, and watching us eat. Creepy.
We were only there for one full day. That night, we drove back to Sioux City, Iowa, and started another adventure-- coming soon!
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