David & LaReita Berky

We bought the cheap tickets on the flight so we were all scattered around on the plane.  They didn’t even put LaReita and Ammon together, which I think is against the law, but Ammon was fine and we decided not to make a big deal out of it.  James, Anthony, Ben and I ended up in a group of 4 seats in the back of the plane, but the other 4 were scattered around the middle area. We got into Kansas City airport about 12:30am and to our hotel for the night around 1:30.

In the morning LaReita and I went back to the airport (on the hotel shuttle – had to take an Uber from the airport to the hotel since no hotel shuttles were running at 12:30am) to pick up our rental cars.  We ended up with a couple of smallish SUVs.  One has room for 6.  Renting 2 cars was cheaper than renting a passenger van.  The SUVs were free upgrades since they didn’t have any of the mid-sized cars we reserved.Friday we had a burger lunch at a local restaurant which was in the basement of a building in the town square (of Independence) then visited the Harry S Truman Presidential Library.  Then we went to the church Visitors Center near the temple site and next to the spiral Community of Christ tower across from the temple site.  We also walked on the temple site and sang the 12th article of faith about the New Jerusalem being restored.  We then checked into our AirBnB which was across the street from Truman’s home and served as the offices/home of the Secret Service detailed to Truman back in the 70s.

Saturday morning LaReita went to Legoland with Ammon and I and the older boys went to the WWI museum a couple hours later.  In addition to touring the museum we did a 15 min VR tour of being in the trenches.  LaReita and Ammon joined us after they were done at Legoland.  We then went to a local Mongolian grill-type all-you-can-eat restaurant and we ate all we could eat.  We then returned to the Secret Service House and watched afternoon conference.  We worked on a 1000 piece puzzle, napped and just hung out for the evening.

Sunday we watched morning conference and then went to Liberty Jail and took the tour there.  Then watched afternoon conference in the basement of the visitors center where they had a small auditorium and projector.  The boys were able to get one of the older missionary’s phone to connect with the projector so we could stream conference through Youtube – it’s a modern world.  After conference we made and sandwiches out of the back of one of the cars then headed to Richmond to see a monument to the Three Witnesses in an old pioneer cemetery.  Then headed home to relax for the evening.

Yesterday we cleaned up the AirBnB and headed to Hannibal MO.  On the way we stopped at the Far West temple site, then a local general store which was church oriented, and then on to Adam-Ondi-Ahman.  We had the boys separate for a while and spend some time alone thinking and praying.  We also took the opportunity while there and overlooking the valley, to give each of the boys a father’s blessing, and LaReita a blessing, then James gave me a blessing.  It was a great spirit.

We then drove into a local town and had a fried-chicken buffet and got our money’s worth.  Then kept driving to Hannibal and checked into a hotel.  Hit the pool and hot tub, and LaReita went to the next door restaurant to get some cake and appetizers to celebrate James’ birthday (23 y/o).  Then we hung out, watched TV then went to sleep.

Today, we got up around 8:30 – everyone was tired – had breakfast and are hanging out in the room. We have 12pm tickets to a riverboat ride.  Then we’ll go to a “Mark Twain” cave system and then finish driving on into Nauvoo.  We’ll need to plan meals for the next few days – we’ve been eating out a big meal once a day and having meals at the AirBnBs or hotels for the rest of the meals to save some money.  But there’s no grocery stores near Nauvoo so we’ll need to plan and then purchase food for the next few days.

Truman’s Oval Office

Independence temple lot

Ammon at Legoland

Family at WWI museum

Puzzle during conference

Liberty Jail

Three Witnesses Monument