We are so excited about where Elder Logan Grady Payne got assigned for his first area. The Keokuk Iowa Branch in the Nauvoo Stake.
It is exciting to see how close he is to Nauvoo and Carthage Illinois, such amazing areas in church history!
Nauvoo is where the early saint fled to in 1838-1839 when the governor of the state of Missouri made an extermination order on all Mormons and ordered that all Mormons be killed.
Over the next few years 16,000 Latter-day Saints moved to the area.
Carthage was where the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother were held in Jail. On June 27 1844 an angry mob stormed the Carthage Jail and killed the Prophet Josph Smith and is brother.
After that the saints were forced out of the area and between February and September of 1846 most of them left the area and began their journey West. While in Nauvoo the Saints built a beautiful Temple which the mobs burnt to the ground when they left. In Oct of 1999 the LDS Church began to rebuild the LDS Temple in Nauvoo trying to stay as true to the original design as they could.
I hope this brief history lesson can help you all to see how significant this area is to us and why we are so excited that Logan gets to serve here.