Palmyra

We were all really excited about going to Palmyra. Neither B or I had ever been there before. We didn't know how to get to all the church history sites. We knew there was a visitor's center, so we started there. It was the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Center. It sits at the base of the Hill Cumorah. We weren't allowed to go on the hill because it was all set up for the pageant. We found out that we were missing the start date of the pageant by two days. Bummer I know but on the other had I can't imagine that K and little B would like the pageant at all. We did climb the trail to the top of the hill and look down on it. We were surprised how far away the hill was from Joseph Smith's house. It put me in even more awe of him, that he ran through the woods so far back to his house holding the gold plates. It was probably at least three miles from the hill back to his house, at night, through the woods knowing that there were mobbers around him trying to attack him would have been truly terrifying! It's just another testament to the truthfulness of the whole thing. To me, it wouldn't be worth the risk of my life or the lives of my family if it wasn't true. I have a feeling that might be said more than once in this post! We were able to get a pretty cool family picture in the visitor's center,

 How cool is that?! They painted the background with trees so that it would resemble the Sacred Grove. I think that is really awesome! We left the visitor's center and went to the Palmyra temple. Of course, it's beautiful!

I wish there had been someone there to take a picture of all of us outside the temple, but clearly, there wasn't. The windows of this temple are not really stain glass, but they have scenes from the first vision on them. We loved walking around the temple and looking at the windows. The spirit was all over Palmyra! It was so awesome! The difference between NYC and Palmyra was almost tangible. I'm not trying to be judgmental, but when we were in the city something that kept going through my mind was the scene from the Book of Mormon in Lehi's dream of the great and spacious building. In Palmyra I felt like we were at the tree eating the fruit. That's where I want to be! That's where I want my family to be! It made me appreciate the teachings of the gospel and that I know that choosing the right is what really brings me happiness. It's not having everything the world has to offer. Truly, being in Palmyra was awesome! Sorry if I sounded preachy, that wasn't my intent, I just love the gospel and the happiness it brings to my life! Anyway, we left the temple grounds and went to the Smith family farm!

I thought that this was the original and one and only Smith family house. I learned otherwise. This is what Lucy Mack Smith called the log house. It wasn't her home, so she couldn't call it that. They built it right after they bought their 100 acres, before they could build the frame home. This is not the original home either. When the church got the land back, there was no cabin. It had be totally destroyed. They went to great lengths to find the actual spot where the house had sat. They thought they had found the original foundation because they found rusted silverware, pottery from plates and one gold bead. In Lucy Mack's journal she tells a story about how she had a necklace that had gold beads on it. One day she was in the kitchen going about her work and somehow her necklace broke. She wrote that she found all the gold beads except for one. The one gold bead that the church found was the one that she had lost. So we know that this house is sitting on the same spot that the original house was sitting on. It's built to as close at the original as they could get. Our tour guide said that there were between ten and eleven kids living in this house at one time. There would have been eleven if both Alvin and baby Lucy were alive and living here at the same time, but there's no record on that specific detail. I have no clue how a family of that size fit in this house. Just from the outside you can tell that it's not spacious by any stretch of the imagination. They must have just sat on top of each other, literally, sat on top of each other!

  The lady that took this picture was standing at the front door. There is a table in front of us, that's the only thing between us and the camera. The parents room was right across from us. If you walked to their room and through it, there was another bedroom. that was it for the downstairs. Then we went up. This is the house that the angel Moroni came to Joseph Smith to tell him about the Golden Plates. Seeing upstairs made it even more amazing that none of his siblings woke up when Moroni was there. 

This time the picture was taken at the top of the stairs. We're in front of one bed, there was a bed across the room. The boys slept out here and the bedroom behind us was for the girls. Clearly there was some heavenly sleep dust sprinkled on all his siblings so that they stayed asleep when Moroni came to see him three times in one night!

Little B loved walking on the gravel and listening to the sound it made. The barn behind him is the threshing barn. It's not the Smith's barn, that was also destroyed. The frame of the barn came from the John Young farm. John Young was Brigham Young's dad. When the church found out that the frame from the Young farm was still standing, they got it, however they do that, marked all the beams, took it apart, moved it to the Smith family farm and rebuilt it. They put up new walls and a roof and then made it look old. This barn sits right across from the frame home.

This was Lucy Mack Smith's dream home. 85% of it is original. We couldn't go upstairs, but we got to go in. This is the house they lived in when Joseph Smith was able to bring the gold plates home from the Hill Cumorah.

Little B was freaking out because he wanted to get down and walk some more, M was trying to be in charge of K and so I was reminding her that she's not in charge of him no matter how badly she wants to be. B was trying to take a picture of little B to make him happy. I don't know where K is. My guess is that he is kneeling down right in front  of M playing in the puddle that she has told him over and over again not to play in! I was telling her that I was standing right there and if K was doing something he shouldn't be, I would tell him to stop. She's trying to say,"But..." I tell her but's are for chairs and into the house we go!

We only took this one picture of the inside. Let me tell you, this house was SO much bigger than the other one! Holy smokes! I wish we had taken a picture of the rug. It wasn't a rug at all. We learned that one of Lucy Mack Smith's many talents was painting oil clothes with beautiful designs! The one on the floor was one that she had done. She used to paint them, they would take them to town and try to sell them to make some extra money. You may be thinking that it's odd that we only took  a picture of these bricks. Trust me, it's so awesome that we took this picture! These are the very bricks that Joseph Smith himself moved to hide the golden plates under one time when the mobs were coming to get them. When they weren't being hidden under the bricks, they were kept in a huge box. The box was too obvious of a spot, so they were only kept there during times of calm. I imagine that means the golden plates weren't in that box very often. Just seeing this spot gives me full body chills!

Both Joseph Smith Sr and Hyrum were Cooper's. That means they were barrel makers. This is the shed that they would make their barrels in. This isn't original, but this is the same spot and this is what the original looked like. One night Joseph Smith learned that the mobs were coming. They were coming down the street right behind where the frame home is sitting. Anyway, he heard they were coming and carried the golden plates out to this shed. He had the plates in the huge wooden box. He pulled up some floorboards, put the wooden box under the floor, replaced the floorboards and went back into the house. As he walked in he brushed off his hands and said,"I'm glad that's over with!" He had a really uncomfortable feeling. He went back out to the shed, pulled the floorboards up, took the plates out of the box, but left the box. He covered the box up with the floorboards. There was a tiny loft that he could reach flat footed. He put the plates up there and covered them with flax. He went back into the house and the mob came. The next morning he went out to the shed to check on the plates. The floor had been totally pulled up, the box the plates had been in had been smashed to pieces. His heart skipped a beat as he looked up at the loft. There untouched were the plates, still covered in flax. How awesome is that?! 

They are looking at the loft. I know that it looks really high, but the step to get in is high and if a grown man was in there, it's wouldn't be too far above his head. It amazes me that the plates always stayed safe. I know that Heavenly Father kept them safe, but there were so many times that they should have been found when they weren't. Joseph Smith sacrificed so much to keep them safe. If the Book of Mormon isn't true or important why would Heavenly Father go to such great lengths to keep them safe and why would Joseph Smith, who was only human, be so willing to sacrifice so much to protect them, translate them and make sure it got published?

After we saw the houses, barn and shed, we got to go in the Sacred Grove. To say that it was beautiful and amazing just doesn't sound right. The spirit is amazing here and it's beautiful!

Look how cute he is! He loved walking a few steps, bending down to pick up rocks and throwing them. 

 This is what it looked like through the entire thing. There are a lot of trails that branch off and go to different places. It's beautiful no matter what path you take. I love my family so much and I am so glad that we were able to go to this amazing place together!

After awhile he got tired of seeing another tree. Ok, let's be honest. It didn't even take a little while. As soon as he took one step off the asphalt in the parking lot onto the trail that was gravel, the rocks were way more interesting to him. :)

I love this picture, especially since little B is crossing his legs!

We left the Sacred Grove/the Smith family farm and drove into Palmyra to see where the Book of Mormon was published for the first time.

Of course we had to get a picture with the sign...

...And the building! The building is original, so that was really awesome to see!

This is the bookstore inside the printers. Most of the books they printed then were paperback. It was cheaper and there weren't very many books important enough to put in a leather cover. The Bible was in leather. Joseph Smith wanted people to know that the Book of Mormon was important like the Bible. He wanted it in leather. At first the printer, E.B. Grandin told Joseph Smith that he wouldn't print it because he didn't want to be persecuted. Joseph Smith took it to Rochester and found a printer willing to print it. Joseph Smith wanted to be able to oversee the printing to make sure it wasn't changed during printing. Rochester was too far away for him to oversee it. He asked E.B. Grandin again, who finally agreed to do it. He was persecuted for printing it too. On more than one occasion he had to shut down his entire shop until things calmed down again. E.B. Grandin did read the Book of Mormon just because he was printing it. He never joined the church because he never prayed about it with a sincere heart. The first copies of the Book of Mormon were being sold for $1.75. That was too much money, people couldn't afford that. They dropped the price to $1.20. Even that was really expensive. In today's money that's $200.00. For the first people that bought a copy of the Book of Mormon it was a huge sacrifice and act of faith. If I remember right, E.B Grandin was the same age as Joseph Smith and he died one year after the prophet from pneumonia. People think that the reason he was on earth was to print the Book of Mormon.  

The book on the right of the case is an actual Book of Mormon printed in 1830. They also had a copy of the sheet that Martin Harris took to Charles Anthon to have him look at the characters that Joseph Smith had translated. The R.L.D.S church owns the original and won't let the church have it, but they let them make a copy. At the top of the sheet where Joseph Smith had written it just says "caracters" The missionary giving us the tour pointed out that Joseph Smith hadn't known how to spell characters right. That right there is a little proof that there's no way he could have made the Book of Mormon up. To see the characters on the sheet was really cool! There were also original paintings that someone painted of scenes from the Book of Mormon. The guy painted them in the 1850's. He was in art school when he found and read the Book of Mormon. He loved it so much that after he was baptized he dropped out of art school, went on a mission and then painted scenes from the Book of Mormon. We didn't take any pictures of them. I wish we had, but obviously we couldn't have a flash because the paintings were so old. They were beautiful and we didn't think a picture would work with the lighting in the building and our not so fancy camera. The paintings were incredible! Even that doesn't seem like the right word. We loved being in Palmyra and seeing such amazing things and being in places where the prophet had stood and been! We left Palmyra and made the two hour drive to Niagara Falls.

 This little boy was so tired and so tired of being in the car for long stretches at a time. He kept reaching for me. I wanted to take him out so bad and love him. I was a good girl and left him alone. After about ten minutes he was able to fall asleep and he slept almost the entire drive. Needless to say, he was so happy to get out of the car once we got to Niagara Falls!