Church Sites

We had a lovely trip to upstate New York in the middle of October to see my parents who are serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had a lovely visit and saw all sorts of fun things.

We were able to stay with my parents, who have an extra bedroom. The home they are staying in is right next to the Smith Family Farm, so you can look into the Sacred Grove from their back windows. It was a lovely place to be, and allowed us easy access to all the Church history sites and the ability to take several walks through the Sacred Grove. 

Mom and Dad took us on personal tours of each of the sites. Mom took Summer on her own little tours of some of the sites and then watched the gilrs as Dad took us through them again-giving us the "adult" version. It was fun to listen to them and to hear about what they have learned. It was also fun to watch take others on tours of the sites. They are such wonderful missionaries! The sister missionaries all seemed to love them as well. 

Pictures of the Sacred Grove. Our first trip in here, I was explained to Summer where we were going. We had talked about the Sacred Grove at home and how this was where Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. She was very excited to go in. We stopped soon after entered the grove and talked some more about where we were. Summer got very excited and said "Le'ts go see Jesus." She was expecting to walk in and see Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, and Joseph Smith. I then had to tell her that we wouldn't see them, but that we would be able to feel their presence, which seemed to satisfy her. Oh, the innocence and faith of a child! 

We got caught in the rain one evening in the Sacred Grove. We were pretty wet by the time we got home, but both girls though it was quite fun. It was also getting dark so this picture isn't great, but I wanted a picture of the four of us in the Sacred Grove.

The next two pictures were taken in the Frame Home on the Smith Family Farm. This was the second, larger home that the Smith's built and then lived in.

The next two pictures are of the Log Home, which was the first home the Smith's lived in. This is where Joseph's family lived when he had the first vision and when Moroni came to visit him. 

Mom tooks us for a ride in the golf cart around the Smith Farm. Summer thought it was the greatest thing ever!

The farm. The sacred grove is to the right in the picture.

 Leaving the Sacred Grove.

 Sacred Grove on the right.

This is the Whitmer Farm. I think this was my favorite place to visit. So many miraculous and important things happened here, It was fun to listen to all that did happen and to feel the Spirit here. When I came 10 years ago with a large tour group of students, this site seemed very rushed and we didn't get to see much. It was nice to be able to really soak it all in. This is where a lot of translation of the Book of Mormon occured, where the Church was organized, and where the three witnesses saw the Gold Plates and had a visitation from Moroni.

This is the Martin Harris Farm. This home was not his, but now sits on the property and is one of the places where missionaries live. The home is a lake stone home, which means all the stones are the beautiful, flat rocks from Lake Ontario. I thought it was a beautiful, old home.

 Grandin Print Shop: This was where the Book of Mormon was published. It was fun to learn about all the miracles that took place to allow for the printing of the Book of Mormon. It was also interesting to see how much of a process it was to print/bind a book two hundred years ago.

Hill Cumorah: We spent an afternoon with my parents at the Hill Cumorah visitors center. We hiked to the top of the hill and explored all the things available in the visiotrs center. Summer quite liked pushing all the buttons for the videos. One of my favorites is the display of the Book of Mormon in all different languages. They have a bunch of copies of the Book of Mormon in all sorts of different languages that you can look through. Many of them I didn't even recognize the language.

The Palmyra Temple: Anders and I got to do a session in the Palmyra temple, which is about a 30 second drive from Mom & Dad's apartment. It is little tiny compared to the temple's here in Utah. We ended up in a session with two tour groups, so it was overflowing with people at least 20 years older than us. It was a lovely evening though. Thanks for babysitting Mom & Dad.

We also went over the first day we were there to walk around the grounds. Summer was thrilled that you could see the steeple and Angel Moroni from where we were staying and wanted to go see it, so we stopped as soon as we could. Mom and Dad walked around with us and showed us the orginal rock fence that was build by the Smiths.

The view of the temple from the Smith Family Farm. The temple overlooks the Sacred Grove.