In 1842 and 1843, one of the major building projects in Nauvoo was, of course, the Nauvoo Temple. This is something that Joseph Smith had said that the Saints were going to build since shortly after arriving in the city. But like any building project, the Nauvoo Temple faced challenges and obstacles, delays. For instance, there was sometimes trouble and disagreement on some of the committees responsible for building the temple about how to allocate and distribute resources to those who were working on it. And these different obstacles and challenges sometimes delayed work on the temple. Nevertheless, sometimes slowly, the temple was moving forward. The walls were rising, and the Saints were excited for the day that it would be finished. Even amid these challenges and obstacles, the Latter-day Saints were using the unfinished temple. For instance, in late 1841, they dedicated the baptismal font in the basement of the temple. This is where they performed their baptisms for the dead. One of my favorite stories about how the Latter-day Saints used the temple even when it was unfinished has to do with their Church meetings. In Nauvoo, this was a time before ward meetinghouses, before chapels were built. Often in bad weather, they had meetings in individual homes. In good weather, they met in a grove of trees near the temple site. But it was in the inclement weather that they wanted an ability to still meet as a large group. And so Joseph Smith, in September 1842, proposes that the Saints build a temporary floor. And this would allow the Latter-day Saints to come and meet together in a large space. Now, there was still no roof over the temple, and the walls were anywhere from 4 to 12 feet high. But this still allowed the Latter-day Saints to congregate. One of my favorite descriptions of this comes from a letter written by a non-Church member member living in Nauvoo named Charlotte Haven, where she describes to her mother the scene on a Sunday in Nauvoo with Church members dressed in their Sunday best, walking to the temple, but they're carrying with them benches, stools, and chairs. And so there's something amusing, I think, in thinking about that, that going to church in Nauvoo sometimes meant not just getting in your Sunday best but grabbing your chair, grabbing your bench, grabbing your stool so you would have someplace to sit once you arrived. I think it also shows how Church leaders met some of the obstacles and problems that arose, that they were looking for pragmatic solutions to everyday problems. If you needed someplace to sit at church, the solution was to ask Church members to bring their own seat. And that's exactly what they did. So to me, all this shows that even before the temple was finished, it was the heart of Nauvoo.