By Melody Coleman
At 7 a.m. each morning, Whitney George and her roommates walk approximately 60 steps to the Nauvoo Temple to do baptisms for the dead. By 9 a.m., they are in class learning about pioneer life and the Nauvoo Saints.
'It was the most life changing experience I''ve had,' said George, from Valencia, Calif. 'Even though you can learn about the gospel and Joseph Smith anywhere, it''s so different being in the place where he lived and served and taught. I learned and felt things that I don''t think I could have felt anywhere else.'
Each year, hundreds of students, like George, attend the BYU Semester at Nauvoo program where they are able to wakeup each morning in the 'City Beautiful,' in a place where the sacrifice of the early Latter-day Saints is still felt.
However, this winter is the last time students will experience Semester at Nauvoo. The program has impacted over 1,200 student''s testimonies of the Prophet Joseph Smith as they learned about him and the early Saints and traveled to church history and U. S. history sites.
'When I got there, I had a testimony of Joseph Smith, ... but when I left I felt like Joseph Smith was one of my best friends.'
BYU student Bret Palsson, a senior majoring in business marketing, said attending the Nauvoo program was the highlight of his college experience and is sad to learn that it has been discontinued.
'It is unfortunate that students will miss out on the many spiritual experiences that will strengthen their testimony in Nauvoo,' he said.
The closure also disappointed BYU student Gerrit Van Dyke, who attended the Nauvoo study program in 2003, and had hoped his children would also attend the testimony-building program.
No comment has been given as to why the BYU Board of Trustees decided in December to discontinue the program in Nauvoo, but some believe it may be because the Joseph Smith Academy Building needs to be remodeled. No decision has yet been made on what will happen to the building, but it will still be in operation through August for Youth Conferences and other church and community sponsored events.
Some students speculate closure due to high costs of running the program and not enough students being enrolled.
Students pay a little more than the tuition they pay on campus and live in an old Catholic girl''s school that was purchased by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1998. Taking a minimum of 12 credit hours, students are offered religion, history, English, music and computer classes.
The teachers at the Nauvoo program are retired institute teachers and others who volunteer their time for one year.
As students bid farewell to the Nauvoo Study Program, George said she remembers leaving Nauvoo when her semester was over.
'I still remember we were driving away ... and I stared back at the temple, and I kept looking until I couldn''t see it anymore,' George said. 'I remember when I couldn''t see it anymore I started balling just because I love it so much. ... Heavenly Father had a hand in me going there. I am so grateful I had the opportunity before it closed.'