Last summer, I made a trip to Montana to visit my family and to see my niece graduate high school. It was the first time in four years that I had been home, and as a Montanan girl at heart, I had decided to capture images of my most favorite places just so that those images would remain true to me in my heart.
One of the most beautiful places built in Mission Valley is in St. Ignatius at the Mission Church, as it has been come to be known. It rivals many other Catholic cathedrals and other churches, even in Europe, with how intricately beautiful all the hand-painted details are for all those murals, all painted by the cook, no less.
I had the incredible honor to spend several hours with my grandpa listening to how he grew up going to Sunday Mass in this church, to seeing his birthplace, right across the street. We walked around and he talked about taught in Sunday school from sisters who were old enough to remember the original missionaries who brought Catholicism to Western Montana. I'll honor this memory until the day I die.
To capture the beautiful essence of the day, I took pictures of the Mission and its grounds. I truly hope they take your breath away:
 |
| Outside the gate. Open to the public. |
 |
| Let this imagery catch your breath. Yes, those are all hand-painted murals. |
 |
| Let the light come in through stained glass windows, and it will look a little something like this. |
 |
| How beautiful is this? These murals depict the most memorable stories from the Bible. Which scene do you recognize? |
 |
| These were the original cabins and school rooms used from the 1800s the early 1900s. My grandpa remembers being taught classes in one of these buildings... and my mom, walking ahead. |
Now, based on these photos, how much wanderlust are you experiencing? Do you want to explore treasured historical sites and take in its history? Montana is full of amazing history. Have you ever been there?
Going to Montana in my dreams,
Em