Day 2, Base Camp

Okay, so lets get started, eh? Let me first say why I liked this book a lot. It had a lot of stuff that I liked, but the biggest reason is because of the connections that I was able to make between the book and myself. For example, I am LDS. When reading about the things that the people of my church went through as they struggled to find a place they could call home, It makes me feel more grateful for what I have now. The people then had a lot of work to do just to stay alive and make a living for their family. In addition to that, they lived in relative fear, not knowing what might happen to them next. They had already been driven from their 'new home' 2 times. They had gone through tragedies such as Haun's Mill Massacre and the Battle of Crooked River. In this book, they were settling in their own town, building it practically from scratch. They had to build their own homes with not much more than their hands and their knowledge, and they had to sow their own feilds. At the time, much of the Nauvoo area was swampland, so before they could even begin to plant, they had to drain their lands by hand, with no more than shovels to aid them. It was a rough life for anybody, but for a religious group of people seeking refuge from the storm to have to go through that is awful. This book helps me see how much I have been blessed with just by being born into a time, and place where those sacrifices aren't necessary. Reading about the Saints has helped me see just how Saint-like they were. I am excited to learn more about them as I continue to read the series.