A Gift of Remembering

This Christmas Clare was really excited for me to open the gift from their family. I had no idea why or what it could be. Upon opening the wrapping, I noticed she made me a crib-sized quilt using fabric samples that from our Nauvoo costumes. I sat and looked at it and touched it and cried. The wonderful memories that came flooding back. Not just the memories of being there, but also the memories of Tina and I spending hours shopping for fabrics, cutting and sewing and sewing and sewing. As I touched each square I could see whose dress or shirt it was. Did it come from a cape or vest or cravat? I can tell you. So, as you look at the pictures included in this post, there will be a brief explanation of each one, but know that the memories go much, much deeper. Again, thank you Clare for your time but more importantly for giving me the gift of memories.


Look at the quilt and see if you can find the fabric squares within the pictures.


Here's Pat, Sammi, Erin and Stef picking apples in the 2nd year during the "How do you build a city" scene.


Each year we were chosen to be in the "flag scene." It's really the Spirit of God scene, but since there are countries represented with flags, we call it the flag scene. Our first year we were in costumes from Germany. You won't find these fabric samples in my quilt. You can't tell but our men had to wear knickers.


This photo is from the "picnic scene" which ends in a fireworks display. I'm not sure how we were chosen to be down front. This was the 2nd year because I took the picture from the front row. With my broken foot, I wasn't in the cast.


Another photo from "How do you build a city." I believe this was the 3rd year because we had Zack, Nichola and Lys with us. It took 10 of us to carve out a moonstone. It took some imagination to make everyone look like they were doing something.


Our family in our costumes while we were still at home.


This is Sammi, Erin and Stef during the show. It must have been the 2nd year when I was out with a broken foot.


Here is Tom in his missionary scene. He loved this scene almost as much as he loved the fireworks!


This was from "How do you build a city." Our family was in charge of "painting the fence" among other things.


Here's our little 4 year old Andrew. Notice how sweaty his little head is. It really was hot out there in the sun during the day. It didn't always get a whole lot cooler at night. Or perhaps I should say that the humidity didn't lessen just because the sun went down.

I am ever grateful for the opporunity that our family had to participate in the City of Joseph pageant. It was wonderful for the five years we were able to do it. We made lasting friendships with people from all over the country. Our testimonies were strengthened as well. I credit this experience, in part, for the strength of my children's testimonies. We cried when the show was cancelled but rejoiced in the time we had to participate. There will never be another family vacation where we worked so hard and were so exhausted by day's end. It was a service of love!