Foreign Sites in the Midwest?

The drive from Coralville, Iowa to the Kansas City, Missouri airport takes about 5 hours. We decided to break up the trip by making some stops to see interesting places along the way. I didn't realize how interesting they were until I had the following conversation at the airport. Here's the background and the story. We had a 2-hour delay of our flight, so during the waiting I went to an area where there were very few people and made a cell phone call to Heidi to tell her how we were doing. I told her the different places we stopped at along the way. After the call the man sitting a few seats away said: "Excuse me. I didn't mean to listen to your conversation but I couldn't help hearing some of what you said. Are you just returning from a foreign country? If so, which one?" At first I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. I said: "No, we just drove down from Iowa." Then they called our flight and I left the area. But as I thought about it, I had just told Heidi that we had visited "the Amana Colonies," then stopped for lunch in "Lamoni" and later stopped at "Adam-ondi-Ahman." That would sound pretty strange if you weren't familiar with any of those places! Darn, if I had been quicker on the uptake, I could have had a missionary experience! Here are the highlights of our interesting day:

The Amana Colonies, Iowa

We bought a CD audio tour and drove through the 7 villages of the Amana Colonies. We also stopped to go through some shops. The Community of True Inspiration, a religious group founded in 1714 in Germany, facing persecution and economic depression came to the the United States in 1834 and eventually settled in Iowa in 1855. "Amana" is found in the Song of Solomon 4:8 and means "to remain true." They lived in the seven villages communally up until 1932. Property and resources were shared. Men and women were assigned jobs by their village council and no one received a wage. Over 50 communal kitchens were operated by the women and were supplied by the village smokehouse, bakery, ice house, dairy and huge gardens, orchards and vineyards maintained by the villagers. Children attended school 6 days a week, year round, until age 14. Then boys were assigned jobs on the farms or in the craft shops and girls were assigned to the kitchens or gardens. A few boys were sent to college for training as doctors, dentists and teachers. Well-crafted products became a hallmark of the Amanas, and they also founded the Amana Appliance Company with which most of us are familiar. It was very interesting to learn about in light of some members of our church living the United Order.

Lamoni, Iowa



The name of this city sounded intriguing, so we decided to stop for lunch and look around. Was it named after OUR Lamoni? It turns out that, Yes it was! The city was named after King Lamoni from the Book of Mormon. It was the Church headquarters of the Community of Christ church (RLDS) starting in 1881 and lasting for 60 years. Joseph Smith III (pictured above) lived in Lamoni as he presided over the Reorganized Church as its first president. Recently, the Lamoni area has also become home to a sizable Amish community, and we encountered an Amish buggy on the road into town.

Adam-ondi-Ahman, Daviess County, Missouri

Here is the site where Adam and Eve lived after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. According to the Doctrine & Covenants, Adam met his children at the site three years before his death to bestow his blessing. Before the Second Coming, it is said that Adam will convene another meeting there of priesthood leadership, including prophets of all ages, to turn the government of the human family officially to Jesus Christ. In 1838 Adam-ondi-Ahman was the location of a settlement of between 500 and 1,000 Latter-day Saints. The Saints abandoned this settlement when they were expelled from Missouri. Today 3000 acres of the site is owned and maintained as a historic site by the LDS church and remains largely undeveloped farmland. It is a beautiful, peaceful spot and we had the whole place to ourselves!
(Interesting side note which I learned after returning home: This area was also the site of a skirmish in the Civil War on August 4, 1862)


So I guess if you have to make a long drive to the airport and you have the time, you might as well take a break and learn something new and interesting!!