Palmyra

Here are the pics of Palmyra. We really enjoyed walking around the temple grounds and touring all of the church sites. We stayed at the Palmyra Inn. I LOVED that hotel. You could tell that the rooms were catered toward families (okay, Mormons). It was a beaufitul day. We went to the temple first and walked around and took pictures.


I got a new lens for my camera a couple of months ago and I got to try it out taking pictures of the Angel Moroni. It was the "closest" I'd ever see the statue, and it was really beautiful. I thought it was a little funny that he has a spike on his head. Levi claims it is a lightening rod. I thought maybe it was to keep birds off. What do you think?


Miss Kassidy in front of the tulips at the temple. After a long day at Niagara, her first sunburn, and a night with no sleep, we were pushing it asking for pictures. She kinda humored us for a while.

Levi and his pregnant wife at the Joseph Smith farm with the temple floating in the trees in the background. There are stained-glass windows all around the temple that depict the sacred grove, except in the center of the side of the temple you see here. The two windows in the center have an opening in the stained-glass trees that lets one see the actual grove from the temple. It was fun to hear the stories (some true, some Mormon folklore) about how it came to be that the trees by the temple had a dip in them so the grove could be seen.

Daddy carrying his finally asleep baby girl through the sacred grove. It was a really neat experience being in that place. It was almost unbelieveable that we were really there. It is beautiful! We tried to stop and sit on the benches that are dotted along the path so we could enjoy the time there, but the mosquitos the size of hummingbirds prevented us from staying put too long!


After the grove we went to the publication site for the first copies of the Book of Mormon. It was a really interesting tour, and I learned a lot. It really made me appreciate the Book of Mormon after I understood what it had taken to get it published! By the time we got 1/2 way through that tour, Kassidy let us know that she was done touring, so we left without seeing the Hill Cumorah or any of the things in that area. Luckily, the Palmyra temple is the closest, so we will go back there many times and have opportunities to see anything we missed.