Business and pleasure

This past week Emily and I were able to check out the fantastic metropolis of Kansas City Missouri. I was there Tuesday and Wednesday for business and Emily joined me on Wednesday night until Saturday. Thank you again for those that watched our children. A big thanks to my dad who went to the Father's day water fight at Caitlyn's school in my place. I really didn't know there was going to be shaving cream in the balloons.

We went to some of the surrounding church sites. Independence, Liberty, and Far West. Here are some of those pictures.

Community of Christ Temple right across the street from LDS Visitors Center.

Community of Christ Auditorium. Across the other street from LDS Visitors Center. Independence Temple Lot. Totally un-used. Diagonal from LDS Visitors Center. All that is on this lot is what looks like a raised gravestone that says temple lot. This land is owned by the Community of Christ Church

LDS Visitors Center. Between the 4 previous pictures, you see each corner of one 4-way intersection. It is very intersting that they are all so close. As the sign says, this is the Libery Jail Visitors Center. It is totally surrounded by homes and is in the original location of the jail.This is the replicated jail. Some of the stones are original. The floor of the jail is 100% original. It was numbered, torn up, and placed exactly as it was on a stronger foundation. Joseph Smith is on the left in the light. The man sitting on the right is the depiction of Emily's Great Great Grandfather Alexander McRae. One of the senior couples was thrilled to find out about the relation. It turned out that one of the elders was very educated in the life of Alexander McRae. The color is a little weird. It was very dark and a flash made the picture look weird. I left the camera shutter open and this is how it turned out.

One of the Senior Sisters took a picture for us. See, the flash didn't work well in here.This is at the temple site at Far West. The engravings held sections of the Doctrine and Covenants as well as other prophecies of church growth and temples. This is about all there is in Far West. The corner stones are here on the lot and a nice senior coouple was tending to the flower gardens. It is a very small site. Much smaller than I had anticipated. It probably wasnt much bigger that the footprint of my house. It was a very beautiful area. The history of why they settled here and why they thought they were going to be safe is really very interesting. We are going to become more familiar.This is the view from the entrance of the temple site at Far West. It is sad that this picture does not show how spectacular this area is.

We did hear quite a funny story while we were out there. My Dad served a mission in the Central States 4 1/2 decades ago. (haha) He serves in Liberty, MO for a period. While he was there, he stayed in an apartment that was in the basement of the Libert Jail Visitors Center. One night he and his companion went and slept on the hard stone floor of the Liberty Jail to better understand the conditions that the 5 men endured for 4 months through the winter. When we told the younger sisters serving there about this they looked like they had heard the worst news of their lives. It was quite funny. That apartment is now a theater, seen below.We had quite a fun trip and logeed about 500 miles on the rental car. If you ever have the chance to go to these sites, they are worth the time.