New York -- Day 3

The third day of our New York trip was a Sunday so we spent the morning going to the Palmyra Ward located right down the street from the Joseph Smith family farm. It was like going to Stake Conference, with the chapel, overflow, gym and stage completely full of visitors that day! The Aaronic priesthood had quite the challenge to pass the Sacrament to that many people but they were very organized and you could tell they were used to those large numbers during the summer months (especially during the weeks of the Hill Cumorah pageant.)

After church, we had a picnic lunch before heading over to the Palmyra Temple grounds. The Palmyra Temple was built just a few minutes from the Joseph Smith Farm and is right across the street from the Stake Center where we attended church. 

It was a pretty hot day but the kids did great touring around all the church historical sites.

After the Temple, we drove two miles to the Hill Cumorah's Visitor's Center in order to cool down a bit. The kids loved all of the interactive exhibits and the adults loved the cool air conditioning!

Then we made the trek up to the Angel Moroni Monument on top of the Hill Cumorah. It was truly a "hill of considerable size" but we made the journey without too much trouble! On the night of the pageant we could actually see Moroni peeking out of the tops of the trees from our seats which the kids really enjoyed seeing.




The view of the Pageant stage from above...



After the Hill Cumorah, we toured the Grandin Printing Press where the Book of Mormon was first published. This was actually one of my most favorite spots because I learned so much and realized just how tedious of a process it was to print books back in the 1830's.

Here is the front of the Grandin Store...

The printing area (I would NOT have wanted to have the job of typesetting all of those pages!)

An actual first edition of the Book of Mormon...

We got a quick drive-by look at the home of Marin Harris...



Before hitting the Joseph Smith Family Farm. Here is the log home...

And the frame home...(the frame home was so much nicer than the log home and I can only imagine how hard it must have been for Lucy to move back into the log home after they lost the mortgage to the frame home. As a woman and mother, that would have been pretty hard!)


Then we headed into the Sacred Grove. We were a bit surprised by just how close the grove was to the farm.

It was so beautiful and quiet inside the grove of trees...

I decided to bear my testimony about the prophet Joseph Smith to Abby and Landon right inside the grove. I'm not sure how much of an impression it made on them, but I hope they remember this incredible experience to see firsthand the sites of the restoration.


After we finished up at the Sacred Grove, we had one more place to visit before our journey was over. It was about 20 miles away and we knew it would be closed to visitors, but we decided to venture on over anyway. Then Nolan threw up in the car (I think he may have had a touch of heat exhaustion) and we almost bagged the whole idea, but after cleaning him and his seat up at the Inn we were staying at, we continued on our way.

Here is the Peter Whitmer farm, where the church was organized over 180 years ago...

From such humble beginnings to a worldwide, rapidly growing church!! It was such a quiet area and a wonderful way to end our trip.

After a restful night, we made the 5-hour journey back home. These kids did so amazingly well and it sure was fun to experience all of these great places with my parents!