NebrASKa how our trip went!

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!

Temple #50: Winter Quarters, Nebraska

It was Josh's idea to make Winter Quarters temple #50. We are crazy, I know. I can only say that we didn't really set out to go to so many. It just kind of happened over time. When we got married, we talked about all the temples we wanted to see before we had kids. And then we kept not having kids, so we kept going to more temples. I've probably told this story before.

the temple sign-- to the side of, not in front of, the temple

The Winter Quarters temple is on this big hill and it was built right next to a pioneer cemetery. In fact, if the Celestial Room window had not been made of stained glass, it would look right into the cemetery. Symbolic? Obviously.

from the front of the temple

This is a similar design to the Snowflake, Arizona temple, which means that when you walk through the door there is a stained glass window behind the reception desk, behind which is the baptistry. To get to the ordinance rooms, you take a staircase to the right.

the front doors

This temple has a few stained glass windows, such as this one (I think, though I'm not entirely sure, that the baptistry is on the other side):

The first ordinance room doesn't have landscape murals, but does have two landscape paintings. One was of chimney rock, which fans of the Oregon Trail game can appreciate. Otherwise, it is white walls with gold painted trim (except for one or two features in the upstairs waiting area, which I will get to).

The Celestial Room was small and had two green, overstuffed couches that reminded me of something my sister Tasha would buy (or possibly owns). Then the room is ringed with more chairs of different types, mostly moss green and beige. The stained glass window had the Tree of Life (I assume). The room also had a puzzling grape motif. I know that when I think of Nebraska, the first thing that comes to mind is grapes. Go figure.

The final, really interesting part, of this temple is the waiting area on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs. There is a beautiful painting of the settlement of the Saints at Winter Quarters. There is also a painted stained glass-ish window with multiple scenes and people that are important to Winter Quarters and the Mormon Trail. We got to meet the temple president and matron and told them that this was our 50th temple in a little over 5 years of marriage. They seemed much more impressed than people were when we had only visited 49 temples. They were extremely nice and wished me luck with school (I told them I am going to need it). 

I have decided to include our other Omaha adventures (the Mormon Trail Visitor's Center, Kanesville Tabernacle, Italian steak, and Sioux Falls) in the next blog post. Right now I just want to revel in the fact that we actually, weirdly, have now been to 50 temples. (It probably goes without saying that Josh has already planned our next temple tour, but it will have to wait until the summer and the end of my internship).