Vacation Day 5--- Church and the Whitmer Farm

NO, I will not give up. I will make it through our vacation. I struggle with brevity so these posts take a while to write.

The first thing we did on day 5 of our vacation was wake up and get ready for church. Our church is unique in that we are all connected. We were able to easily look up on the lds.org website the location of the nearest church building and what time their meetings started. We knew what we could expect: a meeting the same as we would attend in Iowa. It is always such an amazing thing to attend another ward (or congregation) in our church. It is a reminder of how amazing the organization of the church is and how connected we really are. We are learning the same things out of the same manuals. The people there and where ever you come from are all trying to change and make their lives more in line with the teachings of the Lord. There is an automatic kinship you feel just from knowing they too love the Savior and want to follow his teachings. The kids even feel somewhat comfortable because they know what to expect. It is nice to slow down a little from the vacation pace as well.

Next we drove the short distance to Palymyra, NY. This tiny New York town has great significance for members of our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe that it was in this small town in the year 1820 an unassuming 14 year old boy seeking anwsers went into the woods to pray. Our Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ appeared to this young boy. This was the beginning of the restoration of Christ's church on the earth once again. For us it is a sacred place.

We first stopped at the Hill Cumorah Visitor's center where you can get an overview of some the significant events that happened in the area. It also has several interactive exhibits. We enjoyed visiting with a Sister missionary who was from Samoa. Greg and I visited Samoa for 2 weeks when we were newlyweds. We were visiting my grandparents who were serving a mission there. It is one of those experiences and places that are near and dear to our hearts.

Next we took the family to the Peter Whitmer farm in Fayette, NY (actually I don't think it is actually in Fayette anymore, but it was in 1830). This was the place where the church was officially organized in April of 1830. It is a beautiful rural setting with a unique chapel that is used by a ward there. My favorite part was the tiny home that the Whitmers so graciously allowed to be used for church meetings. I felt so grateful to live in this day and age where the church has grown to millions of members. I felt grateful for the sacrifice and devotion that was shown by those early members. They gave so much of their time, talents and resources to build the kingdom. It was such a peaceful place. I think we all felt the specialness of the place and felt so grateful to be there together. How grateful we are for our membership in the Church of Jesus Christ in these Latter-days!

Here are the kids at the Whitmer farm. We were having camera troubles so there aren't as many pictures here on out and most of what we have were taken with Greg's iphone.

What a lovely Sunday this was.