Palmyra, New York

For Memorial Day Weekend, we took the girls out of school on Friday and drove about 7 hours northwest of our house.  We spent that night at a Marriott in Syracuse.  (Dear Government, Thank you for sending my husband to Washington, D.C. to attend innumerous, albeit wonderful resume additions, job-related classes in-between all his time spent in Iraq.  Now that we can spend time together as a family, we have an infinite number of hotel points.  Sarah)  The kids are always excited to stay in a hotel room, swim in a pool, and have a buffet breakfast.

On Saturday morning, we packed up and headed over to Palmyra, New York.  Palmyra is special because it is the birthplace of Joseph Smith, the founder of our Church, as well as the the birthplace of the Church, itself.  These three pictures are:  1.  the log cabin where Joseph Smith grew up, including where Moroni appeared to him in his room  2.  the nicer house that Alvin, older brother to Joseph, built for the family  3.  the fireplace in Alvin's built house, where Joseph had to hide the Gold Plates in the hearth

These pictures are of the Sacred Grove.  This is an important place, located just behind/across from the two previous houses, where Joseph went one day and knelt in prayer to ask which of the local churches he should join.  He was answered with an appearance from our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

From the two houses, you have the Sacred Grove on one side and the Palmyra New York Temple on the other.  The missionary tour guide of the houses said, "It's funny how the trees just open up like that."  I included pictures of the stained glass, which all resemble the one I took.  I included a picture of Jeremy and I in front of one window...it is an actual window you can look out of, out on to the Sacred Grove.  There is one picture of the kids lined up in front of a fence railing, that is the Sacred Grove behind them and they would have been in the way of someone looking out the window I just mentioned.

Fortunately, there is a McDonald's about 2 miles down the road.  It's a great place to make a stop for lunch, and a stop for ice cream, and a stop for...  Well, it wasn't the weather that we needed a break from.

We also went to Hill Cumorah.  This is only about a mile around the corner from the above pictures/location.  This is special because this is where Moroni hid the gold plates.  And, as our missionary tour guide also humored, "Isn't it miraculous that it was so close to the place that Joseph lived in a decided to pray about religion in?"  The pictures I included are of a statue honoring Moroni and from the top of the Hill looking out.

 And, we finished up with the printing press where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed...in the town itself of Palmyra.  They have restored and replicated it.  We took a tour to see all the rooms and learn the whole process of what it took back then to print them.