We got up early to start our day in upstate NY. I looked up when the first tours started and we made our way to Palmyra. The lake we were staying at was only about 20 mins south of it and we got to drive through some more adorable little towns.
Of course we had to start at the sacred grove. It's out in the country with lots of fields and farms still to this day. Right next to it is the temple and a church up the road. We were the first tour of the day so we started in the little visitor center. There was another family in our group (who we would see through our whole trip even into Ohio) and a couple other people. But a small group.
We started in the replica of the Smiths first home.
The view of the temple from the road between the first and second Joseph smith Sr homes.
The second home is their actual home. Can you believe it? Some of the floorboards are the same as when they lived there.
The brick on the left is the spot where they hid the plates from people trying to steal them.
Their barn where they built things. They also hid the plates in here for a time.
After this part of the tour we were invited to go into the sacred grove. It wasn't a tour we were welcome to spend as much time as we would like in there. Which was really cool.
As soon as we got inside the grove of trees Bryan and Ty split off on their own and started walking around. It big but not big enough to really get lost there. I kept the other 4 with me and soon Blake split off on his own too. Which I was happy about Easton and Brett were kind of loud.
I grabbed a photo of all of them before they started exploring. Brett found a frog that made him happy.
I loved it here so much. The only downside was it was full of mosquitos and my bug spray was in the car.
We were asked to stay on the paths so the whole thing doesn't get trampled down. And they had benches around.
So I'm actually typing this over a year later because I'm so behind and I wanted to mention that I wondered if this trip impacted any of my kids. I thought it did for my other boys but I wasn't sure. Tyson had his mission farewell a couple of months ago and he actually talked about the feeling he had in the sacred grove and how it impacted his testimony. I knew right then that this trip was worth it even if he was the only one who got anything out of it. I can tell Ty really had a good experience spending some time alone there. So did Blake.
You can actually see where they piled rocks for a fence through the middle of the trees.
Tyson
Joseph Smith Sr Framed home. The other one they call the log home.
Of course these are out of order but in the framed home we talked about this is where Joesph lived when get actually got the plates. He wrapped them up in a work shirt (like this one) and had them sitting like this in the house for a time. They had a replica of the plates so you could feel them under the shirt. They also talked about how people kept breaking into the house to try to steal them. Which is funny to me because they said he didn't have plates but they were always trying to steal them.
I feel like I was so worried about my kids feeling the spirit and having a cool experience it kind of made mine whole experience less meaningful. I didn't dare leave a 7 and 11 year old to wonder on their own and maybe get lost though. I still loved the peace I felt in there. To hear the birds and in trees and the wind though them.
We believe when Joseph Smith was 14 years old he had a lot of questions about his salvation. After reading in the Bible to ask God and he gives answers to his children he went into the grove of trees behind his home to pray about it. Just wondering what church God would have him join. He ended up seeing God and Jesus Christ there. They told him to join none of the churches.
I have little boys. When I think of a 14 year old boy having this experience it's amazing. And after people started hearing about it they treated him horribly. He was pretty much treated horribly for the rest of his short life over this but he would never deny it.
We believe this is where the gold plates were buried. The plates that contain writings of the American civilization around the time of Christ.
Our next stop was the hill Cumorah. Which was a few miles away I had always thought it was just behind their home as well. Walking that would have taken a lot of time for sure.
East kept saying which rock he thought they were buried under. I'm sure that rock is long gone but they thought it was fun to guess.
The couple that were missionaries here knew my dad from Boy Scouts. Small world.
The visitors center was beautiful! They had a video we watched here then we hiked up the hill to the monument. We were the only ones in our tour and we only saw one other couple on the hill. It was really cool to have these places kind of to ourselves.
My brother in law Brad served his mission in upstate NY so we got a tip from him to visit a pizza shop just next to the Grandin book store. It was so good.
Most of our tours only had a couple of people but this tour was full. They went over how the printing came to be and how they did it. It was super interesting.
Some of the original rock on the building.
A copy of what the translation of the Book of Mormon looked like.
The printing room. I can't even imagine how long this would have taken to do. To set each letter of the type and have to do it backward so it would print the right way. Unbelievable.
They had us all fold the pages like they would have had to back then. It was actually kind of hard.
At the time it was one of the best printing presses you could get. And the Book of Mormon is the only book they made on it.
Next we made the drive to the David Whittier home. Which was maybe 30 mins from Palmyra. Again there was only one other family that was there the same time as us. It pays to go before a lot of people get out of school. We were there June 1st. We are standing in the part of the small room where the church was organized April 6, 1830.
We almost didn't go to the Whitmer farm because we had a temple appointment later in Palmyra. But we made it work and were able to get to the temple right on time.
I took Eastons baptism photos in the sacred grove while the other kids were in the temple. I'll do a full post on that.
Out of order photos: Brett in the upstairs of the smith home where all of the children slept in the same room and bed! I can't imagine. It's the room where Joseph Smith had his vision with Moroni.
Our family outside the Joseph Smith Sr log home.
