Keeping at it...

We've had some wonderful experiences here at the sites in the past couple of weeks.  We've been able to share our testimonies, relate a lot of history and enjoy the people who come here.  

More and more visitors are starting to come from all over the world, which is fun.   We're starting to gear up for the Hill Cumorah Pageant, which is in mid-July.  It is the largest outdoor production in the country and a spectacular show  (check it out:  http://www.hillcumorah.org/Pageant/index.php). What Pageant means to us is we will have LOTS of people at the sites.  A busy day now is 100-200 people.  During Pageant we get 3000 or more a day!  Not much free time for us during those weeks!

We have been able to attend the temple every week, when we're not working, which is a wonderful blessing and have done some exploring on our P-days.  

The Nashville Tribute Band came to Rochester and we were able to attend their "Redeemer" concert, which was great.  They are all church members and are accomplished singers and musicians.   The co-founder of the group is Dan Truman, the keyboardist for "Diamond Rio," a Grammy-winning, platinum album-selling country band.  His son, Chad served a mission in Colorado Springs a few years ago and was in our ward for several months.  The band came to the Springs while he was still on his mission and he got permission to perform a couple of numbers with them.  We had dinner with the band and got to know them a little bit then and it was nice to see them all again.  All of the band members have day jobs with other groups and do this on the side to sing their testimony of Jesus Christ.  Chad and his brother, Ben have their own group called "Truman" and three others are in a group called "Due West" (they recently performed at the Grand Ole Opry, which is quite an honor). Jason Deeres, the other co-founder has written music for many of the top country groups in Nashville and performs in his own right.  We were able to take the Truman Family on a tour of the Smith Farm the next day (we were supposed to do the whole band, but they got their wires crossed a little and some went with another missionary). At the end of the tour, the band invited us to come into the Sacred Grove with them, where they sang a song about the First Vision.  It was pretty cool!  

Temple with threatening skies

Smith Frame Home

The Sacred Grove has greened up

On our P-day, we drove up to Lake Ontario again to see the blossoms in the thousands of acres of orchards and vineyards  It was pretty spectacular.  

At the lake we came upon these NY State Fish and Game guys stocking the lake (who knew they stocked the Great Lakes!?).  We watched them dump about 20,000 six inch lake trout in.  

The gulls were VERY interested in the work being done by Fish and Game...

Last week we drove into Rochester (about 30 minutes) to see a garden where they had a lilac festival the previous few days. Unfortunately, there were very few lilacs in bloom (a bad year according to the locals), but the Azaleas were spectacular!  It was hot, though.  85 and humidity in the upper 90's.  I can't wait for summer!

   

We got an impromptu knock on our door from our upstairs neighbors, the Beans a couple of nights ago.  They had a grape pie and wanted to share.  Grape pie is apparently a western New York tradition (there are tons of vineyards around here).  Our neighbors next door came over and we had a party.  It was all a bit tongue-in-cheek, because nobody really likes grape pie who wasn't raised on it...  It's basically an inch of really sweet grape jelly between two pie crusts.  I thought it needed a layer of peanut butter...  There were leftovers.  The Bean's are from Seattle and the Miller's are from Ivins, Utah (near St George).  We really like our neighbors and all the rest of the couples here!

Millers are on the right, Beans are in white

A few random pictures of the Whitmer Farm.  Some day I'll publish a better selection from each of the sites in some sort of order. 

Peter Whitmer Log Home, Fayette, NY

This was taken in the overflow parking lot at the Smith Farm.  These crazy birds, called Killdeers, build their nests out of rocks (how cozy can that be for the junior Killdeers?).   It would appear that this mom is very precise (perhaps she's a German Killdeer), building her nest right on the chalk parking line...

You can see her eggs under her right wing in this shot (she's got her tail feathers ruffled, coming after me).  The nest is almost impossible to see and the eggs look just like rocks.  

Once I backed off a little she went into her fake "Come eat me, I'm hurt" dance to lead me away from the nest:

I clearly bought her act, because I chased after her with my shutter blazing...  We're hoping the chicks hatch and are gone in a couple of weeks before the buses start arriving.

The Erie Canal runs through Palmyra, so we did a little canal exploring the other night.  This is lock #29, located just west of town (there are 35 total locks on the canal).  We're going to take an evening cruise on the canal next week with several other couples, which should be fun.

Getting in the swing...

We're starting to get comfortable with our role here as missionaries.  It's definitely a work in progress, but at least we sort of know what we're doing now.   These sites are all incredible and inspiring (not to mention beautiful).  The other senior couples and the young sister missionaries are fantastic and the people who come to visit are wonderful.  We are really enjoying this! 

This is our mission president and his wife.  They are both great people.  And yes they are really that tall (Ann and I are not standing in a hole...).  My guess is President Francis is 6' 10" -  I know I'd hate to try to box him out for a rebound!

President and Sister Francis

On our first real P-Day in Palmyra we drove over to Mendon, which is about 18 miles from here.  Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball (Brigham’s cousin) lived there and were baptized there.  John Young’s (Brigham’s father) home is still standing, although now cut in two.  The state wanted to put a road right where the house was, so they moved half of it to the other side of the road!   The church owns both halves and missionaries live there.  Brigham and Heber C. also had homes in the area, but they are gone.  Samuel Smith, the first missionary of the Church, stopped at the Tomlinson Inn, which is a quarter of a mile or so from John Young’s home(s) and sold Phineas Young (Brigham’s brother) a copy of the Book of Mormon, which eventually played a role in converting him, Brigham and Heber C.  The inn is still there, but is now a private residence.

John Young Home (1st half)

John Young Home (2nd half)

Tomlinson Inn

 We found a Five Guys for lunch and then did some shopping on the way home.  Well, okay – a lot of shopping…  It’s now drizzling and cold, so we spent the evening inside studying.  It supposed to start warming up tomorrow, which will be nice.     

Spring in the Sacred Grove

 It takes 50 seconds to drive from our apartment to the temple.  Yeah – we could walk, but 
we haven't yet...  It is wonderful to be so close.  

Palmyra Temple

Our P-day this week was a beautiful day, so we drove down to Watkins Glen at the south end of Seneca Lake (about 50 miles from here).  There is a large state park there with a beautiful narrow canyon full of water falls.  It also has a famous road racing track and a NASCAR track that we didn't check out this trip. 

 Unfortunately, nothing was green there yet, so all of my pictures of the Glen are basically brown (see below).  Luckily, film is cheap.  We’ll go back.   

Watkin's Glen

 We drove a little farther down to the town of Corning (as in Corning Ware) in the afternoon and went to the Glass Museum there.  It’s a fascinating place and well worth the trip.  We got to watch glass blowing and other demonstrations with glass, how they make ceramic casserole dishes by heating regular glass in certain ways.  They have and extensive collection of things made out of glass, dating from 1400 BC which was very cool.  It was a gorgeous drive on back roads to Palmyra, through fairly mountainous terrain (using the term “mountainous” in the eastern sense…). 

Spring just all of a sudden happens around here.  One day it's snowing and cold and the next day it's warm and the trees are coming out.  Apparently it sticks once it happens (as opposed to Colorado when you get teased for a month or two and then it's summer).   In three days we went from no leaves to most of the trees budding out.  The Tulip trees were the first to bloom and they're beautiful. However, they immediately start dropping their blossoms, so you have to look fast.  I had hoped to get some more photos, but they were gone before we could get back.  The flowering crabs and fruit trees are just starting to bloom now.   People around here are very glad that spring has arrived.  Most people we've talked to said it was the worst winter they can remember.  They had 8 straight days of 35 below zero (temperature, not including wind chill) and mountains of snow.  Temps are in the 80’s this week (it was 91 one day), which is unseasonably warm.  Humidity is running around 80%, so it’s a pretty sweaty place...  

Tulip Tree by the Episcopal Church in Palmyra 

 Here are the pictures I promised of the home on Martin Harris' farm.  It was built around 1850 by English stone masons who had helped to construct the Erie Canal (which runs through Palmyra).  After their work on the canal was finished in 1825, they built these homes.

Lake Stone Home on Martin Harris Farm - ca 1850

The population of the village of Palmyra is about 3500, so it’s pretty small.  The “town” of Palmyra, however, has about 7,000.  Huh?   Let me explain for you westerners:  

Around these parts there are “townships, “villages” and “cities.”  I don’t know what differentiates a city from a village, but somebody around here probably does.  But the township thing can throw us foreigners...  For instance, you will see is a sign that says:  “Town of Palmyra,” but there won’t be a house in sight; only trees and fields.  Then 5 or 10 miles later you see a sign reading: “Village of Palmyra” – that’s when you see the houses.   A “village” is a community in a “township,” so on the boundaries of the township they have signs which read: "town."  I would have said "Township" on the sign, but they didn't ask me.  For instance, in the Doctrine and Covenants the Whitmer Farm is referred to as being “at Fayette,” or "in Fayette."  But don't be fooled, it's not in the community of Fayette, it's only in the township.   A few days ago, we thought we were in the community of Fayette when we saw a sign in the middle of a town saying “Town of Fayette.” In the west when you see such a sign, that's where you are.  Not so in the east...  In actuality, we were in the “village” of Waterloo, which happens to straddle two townships, one of which is Fayette.  The sign was announcing our departure from one township (Waterloo maybe?) and our arrival in another (Fayette).  The village of Fayette is 8 miles away from that sign.  The Whitmer farm, although much closer to Waterloo than Fayette, is in the Fayette township and so “in Fayette” is correct. 

One of the confusing things for me in church history was the references to the Smith’s home being both at “Manchester,” and “Palmyra.”   The villages of Palmyra and Manchester are about 7 miles apart, so that didn't make sense to me.  Once again, the township deal explains it. 

Pay attention here, there will be a test:  In 1816 the Smith’s move from Vermont to the village of Palmyra.  Two years later, they negotiate to purchase a 100 acre plot of land about two miles south of the village.  However, that piece of land is actually in the Manchester township, not the Palmyra township.  So the farm is “at Manchester,” even though it’s closer to the village of Palmyra.  To complicate matters, they actually build their first home (the “Log Home”) on an adjacent 80 acre plot just to the north of the 100 acres.  Since the Manchester/Palmyra township line runs between the two pieces of land, the log home is “at Palmyra” not “Manchester.”  The Smith’s plan was to first build the log home and live there until they could build a bigger home on the 100 acres.  Hyrum would then live in the log home on the 80 acres with his own family.  The Smiths moved into the log home in 1818.  They were living there when Joseph had the First Vision and when Moroni first appeared to him.  In 1825 they moved to the new frame home on the 100 acre farm in Manchester township.  Joseph and Emma were living there with Joseph’s parents when he first got the plates.  In 1829 the family moved back into the log home in Palmyra township, (they were living there when the Book of Mormon was published).   So they lived in Palmyra first, then Manchester, then back to Palmyra, even though their homes were 200 yards apart.  Clear as mud?

Some photos from the Smith Farm.  You can see actual leaves on the trees now, which weren't there a week ago.

Threshing Barn

Cooper Shop and Frame Home

Log Home - The township line runs along the fence seen behind the home

The Palmyra/Manchester Township line is just to the right of the log home

Sacred Grove with leaves

We’re trying to take a walk every morning, usually through the Sacred Grove, which is very peaceful.  Birds are starting to return from their winter haunts, so we see more of them and hear them singing.  They’re a lot more vocal than most western birds.  There is a pair of Cardinals who live near our apartment. They are beautiful crimson birds and have a very distinctive call.  There are also two small herds of deer who live in the neighborhood (one each on the south and north end of the farm).  They’re eastern white tail and are a lot smaller than the mule deer who frequent our yard in Colorado.   

We drove around Palmyra one early evening to take some pictures of the wonderful old houses (mansions) that are here.  They're pretty amazing.  Here are a few: