Next Reunion: July 7-10 Independence, Missouri
The descendants of Joseph and Emma Hale Smith gathered for the third time in June of 2009. This reunion was an adventure but just being together was the best part.
We were able to get a family picture of all the descendants in front of Joseph Smith III’s home in Independence, Missouri and then visit his home in Lamoni, Iowa.
It was incredible to walk into his home and see their pictures and belongings.
We loved learning more about Joseph Smith III by walking through his home and seeing that he loved photography and that he had his own dark room that he built from a closet. Then we got to go on and visit the family grave sites and the beautiful area all around there. There was an incredible spirit around our family’s graves.
Nauvoo was an incredible part of the reunion. We stayed at Grandma’s house (The Riverside Mansion) and spent a lot of time with each other. We could feel Emma’s
presence there, we knew she was there watching us and proud that her family
had finally come together. We spent a lot of time with just the family touring old
Nauvoo, visiting the old homesteads and other buildings there. Everybody was astounded at the feelings we had there. It felt like home. All of us felt so comfortable, like we could live there forever. We felt like a family, we were united in this beautiful place.
We also had an opportunity to play at the Adventure Zone, a local fun park, and then watch the “Emma Smith, My Story†movie together. We took time to share with each other how much we love and adore Emma. We also spent several hours at Carthage Jail learning about what happened there and feeling the spirit. On the
last evening of our reunion, Ryan Porrit set up a stick pull game. All the family gathered around to watch the competition to see who was the strongest in each age group. It was a riot watching the young children struggling to pull the stick and the older folks getting down and dirty. We then played tug-of-war and had everyone
that could fit on either end of the 50ft rope pulling and tugging with all their might, just to end up falling to the ground in laughter. It was so hard to leave our family. It was a wonderful experience to be able to spend so much time together, to visit and learn all the similarities we have. Many close relation ships were born because of an amazing reunion!
Our next reunion will be July 7th- 10th (Emma’s Birthday) in 2011. We will be spending that time in Independence, Missouri. We are so excited to be able to gather again and to see our family.