Organization of the church
First miracle of the day: Nate slept in until past 9 AM and then woke up without a fever! He was still a little grumpy and a little easy to tire, but ultimately, we feeling a lot better! Yay!
After another kinda lazy morning, we loaded everyone up and headed out for a little bit of a drive to the Whitmer Farm. Originally I had thought the days would be a little too packed to try and make the journey out since it is about 45 minutes away from where we are staying. However, it was ABSOLUTELY worth it. And once again, we were blessed with absolutely perfect weather!
When you get there, you are greeted by a beautiful chapel. This was constructed for the 1980 sesquicentennial celebration of the organization of the church. As always, the missionaries were excited to see us. They brought us into a small private theater room, and put on (what we would learn later) is the 2nd part of some amazing videos about the translation of the Book of Mormon, and then the organization of the church. The video alone is worth the drive - it was amazing! It focuses on David Whitmer and the whole Whitmer family and the role they played in the translation of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration of the Church. One of the most powerful videos I have ever seen. So many miracles happened, and we were all talking about those miracles after.
We then visited with a Senior Missionary while we waited for the other sisters and a gentleman who had come while we were in the video. Once that was cleared, he showed us the house. The kids were a little bummed to find that it was a recreation, but you could feel the spirit in that beautiful place. We started upstairs and visited about how it must have been for Joseph and Oliver to work on the translation upstairs in the heat, and the long hours. [Side note - finding out structures of pieces of the structure that were original became really important and special to the kids when we would get those pointed out. So that is why it was a little bit of a let down.]
Then we went downstairs to where it all started. The first church meeting. I think the kids are getting spoiled by the strength of the Spirit in these places. 😀
This boy is getting **really** anxious to serve a mission. It is so fun to watch his excitement as he tells everyone that we are just days away from his leaving! He is so ready!
On our way back we stopped at a Mennonite grocery store and deli. We grabbed some of the most amazing sandwiches, warm pretzels, and some cinnamon rolls. When you go to the Whitmer farm, you HAVE to stop there. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! Everyone else ate while we drove back into Palmyra on our way to the Hill Cumorah, and I tried to inhale mine once we got there sitting on the grass.
We had set an appointment for the Temple, and so we were under a little bit of a time crunch for the Hill Cumorah at this point. But the sweet missionaries asked if there was any video we hadn't gotten to see. They had the first half of the video on the translation, and this one focused on Oliver Cowdry. The Church did a fantastic job of making it extremely accurate to the records that we have but not focusing on the parts we don't know (i.e. exactly how the translating happened). Powerful spirits, and extremely instructive. And pointing out so many of the little miracles.
The video opens to Joseph burying their first child. And then part way thru the video, you hear Joseph dictating the portion of the plates that tells us that little children are saved that die in infancy. Joseph nearly leaps from the table, and you see Oliver watch from the window as Joseph runs outside, finds Emma, tells her, and they embrace. Oh how sweet the knowledge the Gospel brings!
After the video, we rushed up the hill. Phew! Not a long hike, but straight up! The girls were glad they had been conditioning recently! It was beautiful, but we were still under the gun. So we hustled up, snapped some pics, and then hustled down.
We drove the few miles over to the temple and parked the RV in the church across the street. We kicked on the generator, setup the Xbox for the little boys, and then did our Superman routine into our Church clothes and then Karson, McKay, and I hurried up into the temple.
When we got there, we were treated like royalty! The workers were so excited to have us. Some of the sisters told Karson "We prayed you here!" Come to find out, it was just the 3 of us in the session. The rest were temple workers who then joined in to fill the session enough to complete it. 😀 The temple was simple, but very beautiful. It was amazing - you totally felt that it was an extension of the Sacred Grove. The Spirit testified strongly of the things that happened in that small grove. So of course Karson and I got to be the witness couple, and it was a lovely session.
After the session, we didn't linger long in the Celestial room as we knew we would have more time in Nauvoo next week, and we wanted to get the girls to go do baptisms, and we wanted to make sure the kids hadn't burned the RV down or killed each other, so we scurried back to the RV. Once we got there, we found the local ward (stake?) had setup an obstacle course in the back lot of the church. We hung out in the gazebo for a bit, enjoying the weather, and let the kids play, then we got the girls ready, and headed back to the temple for baptisms.
Again, we were all treated like royalty. It was awesome to watch McKay baptize and then confirm. I love watching him exercise his Priesthood. Parent paydays!!!! Instead of using the confirmation room, they brought those being baptized right up out of the water, wrapped them in a towel, and did the confirmations right there at the edge of the font. So McKay came up out of the water, still wet, and did what the workers referred to as "water's edge confirmations."
As we went to leave the temple, a sweet little sister took us over to the back of the temple. She pointed out some windows that you could see out the back. She let us know that when Pres Hinckley had insisted that the back window be clear so that you could see from the temple and that the back trees be kept trim so you can just see the top of the trees from the Sacred Grove. And while we had done the Farmhouse tours, the sisters had pointed out that from the entrance of the Sacred Grove, you can see the angel Moroni atop the temple. It is very clear that the temple and the Sacred Grove were to be connected.
After that, we came back and another little miracle is that the boys were still ok in the RV (which we had moved to the actual temple parking lot for this). We loaded everyone up, came back to camp in Newark, and relaxed the rest of the night. The kids were restless and I had to bark a bit at 10 PM that they finally settle down and go to sleep. "We don't care if you are tired. Mom and I are tired, so you all need to go to sleep!" 😀
After another kinda lazy morning, we loaded everyone up and headed out for a little bit of a drive to the Whitmer Farm. Originally I had thought the days would be a little too packed to try and make the journey out since it is about 45 minutes away from where we are staying. However, it was ABSOLUTELY worth it. And once again, we were blessed with absolutely perfect weather!
We then visited with a Senior Missionary while we waited for the other sisters and a gentleman who had come while we were in the video. Once that was cleared, he showed us the house. The kids were a little bummed to find that it was a recreation, but you could feel the spirit in that beautiful place. We started upstairs and visited about how it must have been for Joseph and Oliver to work on the translation upstairs in the heat, and the long hours. [Side note - finding out structures of pieces of the structure that were original became really important and special to the kids when we would get those pointed out. So that is why it was a little bit of a let down.]
We had set an appointment for the Temple, and so we were under a little bit of a time crunch for the Hill Cumorah at this point. But the sweet missionaries asked if there was any video we hadn't gotten to see. They had the first half of the video on the translation, and this one focused on Oliver Cowdry. The Church did a fantastic job of making it extremely accurate to the records that we have but not focusing on the parts we don't know (i.e. exactly how the translating happened). Powerful spirits, and extremely instructive. And pointing out so many of the little miracles.
The video opens to Joseph burying their first child. And then part way thru the video, you hear Joseph dictating the portion of the plates that tells us that little children are saved that die in infancy. Joseph nearly leaps from the table, and you see Oliver watch from the window as Joseph runs outside, finds Emma, tells her, and they embrace. Oh how sweet the knowledge the Gospel brings!
After the video, we rushed up the hill. Phew! Not a long hike, but straight up! The girls were glad they had been conditioning recently! It was beautiful, but we were still under the gun. So we hustled up, snapped some pics, and then hustled down.
We drove the few miles over to the temple and parked the RV in the church across the street. We kicked on the generator, setup the Xbox for the little boys, and then did our Superman routine into our Church clothes and then Karson, McKay, and I hurried up into the temple.
When we got there, we were treated like royalty! The workers were so excited to have us. Some of the sisters told Karson "We prayed you here!" Come to find out, it was just the 3 of us in the session. The rest were temple workers who then joined in to fill the session enough to complete it. 😀 The temple was simple, but very beautiful. It was amazing - you totally felt that it was an extension of the Sacred Grove. The Spirit testified strongly of the things that happened in that small grove. So of course Karson and I got to be the witness couple, and it was a lovely session.
After the session, we didn't linger long in the Celestial room as we knew we would have more time in Nauvoo next week, and we wanted to get the girls to go do baptisms, and we wanted to make sure the kids hadn't burned the RV down or killed each other, so we scurried back to the RV. Once we got there, we found the local ward (stake?) had setup an obstacle course in the back lot of the church. We hung out in the gazebo for a bit, enjoying the weather, and let the kids play, then we got the girls ready, and headed back to the temple for baptisms.
Again, we were all treated like royalty. It was awesome to watch McKay baptize and then confirm. I love watching him exercise his Priesthood. Parent paydays!!!! Instead of using the confirmation room, they brought those being baptized right up out of the water, wrapped them in a towel, and did the confirmations right there at the edge of the font. So McKay came up out of the water, still wet, and did what the workers referred to as "water's edge confirmations."
As we went to leave the temple, a sweet little sister took us over to the back of the temple. She pointed out some windows that you could see out the back. She let us know that when Pres Hinckley had insisted that the back window be clear so that you could see from the temple and that the back trees be kept trim so you can just see the top of the trees from the Sacred Grove. And while we had done the Farmhouse tours, the sisters had pointed out that from the entrance of the Sacred Grove, you can see the angel Moroni atop the temple. It is very clear that the temple and the Sacred Grove were to be connected.
After that, we came back and another little miracle is that the boys were still ok in the RV (which we had moved to the actual temple parking lot for this). We loaded everyone up, came back to camp in Newark, and relaxed the rest of the night. The kids were restless and I had to bark a bit at 10 PM that they finally settle down and go to sleep. "We don't care if you are tired. Mom and I are tired, so you all need to go to sleep!" 😀
Comments
Post a Comment