Local couple will serve where pioneers walked

GH residents leave on Mormon service mission next month

Alfred Gunn

special to the Gateway

Roger and Lee White of Gig Harbor have accepted a six-month service mission to the Nauvoo Illinois Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They will leave on April 18 for historic Nauvoo, once a thriving Mormon settlement where Roger’s pioneer ancestors lived after emigrating from England. It’s now a tourist attraction on the Mississippi River. The Whites have lived in Gig Harbor for nine years. Roger retired from human resource work in 2003, but for years, he and Lee have given volunteer service in the Seattle Washington Temple at Bellevue. They will serve in the same way in the temple at rural Nauvoo, which welcomes visitors from all over the country and abroad. Roger, originally from Santa Monica, Calif., and Lee, from Silver Springs, Md., met on their first day as students at Brigham Young University in 1951. They have been married for 54 years. Roger graduated in business management after two years of service with the U.S. Naval Reserves in the Pacific during the Korean War. Today they are parents of seven children and count 31 grandchildren — all of whom are supportive of this voluntary mission. Fifteen of their grandchildren have already served full-time missions for the church themselves, including two who are currently serving in Mexico and central California, respectively. The Whites appreciate the historic significance of Nauvoo, a city that rivaled Chicago in size in 1843, welcoming converts to the church emigrating from Great Britain and Scandinavia. When it was originally built in early 1840s, the Temple was one of the largest and most prominent stone buildings on the western frontier, larger than anything in Illinois at the time. The edifice was completed and dedicated in 1845, following the assassination of the prophet Joseph Smith the previous year at Carthage, Ill. The temple and the City of Nauvoo, which Smith had founded, were then abandoned in 1846 due to mobs and religious persecution. Under the leadership of Brigham Young, thousands of church members began their historic exodus to the Great Salt Lake, and from there, to some 300 settlements they founded in the intermountain west. The Temple at Nauvoo was destroyed by lightning and arsonists after the saints left Illinois. Reconstruction of the historic temple was announced in 1999 by Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, who said, “This will be the House of the Lord. It will be reserved and set aside for the accomplishment of His divine and eternal purposes. It will be a thing of beauty and, I hope, a joy forever.” Completed in 2002, the current majestic white temple is a precise replica of the original, and once again the same sacred ordinances are performed there. The Whites have lived in Gig Harbor for nine years and will return here after their mission to be with their extended family.

Reach Alfred Gunn, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Gig Harbor, at alf.gunn@juno.com or visit www.mormon.org