Family visitors

This past week we took a one week break from teaching institute classes and welcomed several family members visiting from Utah and Arizona. Our oldest daughter Cindy and three of her boys, Bryce, Spencer and Braden, as well as our youngest daughter Amy paid us a visit. It was a great week. 

We started the week by taking a two day trip to Palmyra New York, a six hour drive from New York City, to visit church history sites.

Our first stop was the visitor center at the Hill Cumorah. 

We admired the statue of the angel Moroni on the top of the hill.

In the visitor center we saw a map of Palmyra area, which helped us get oriented as to the location of the Hill Cumorah and the Joseph Smith family farm.

We also saw an aerial view of the temple, the farm and the Sacred Grove. 

We were able to visit the upstairs bedroom in the old log house of the Smith family. This is the room where the angel Moroni appeared to be young boy Joseph Smith three times in one night. This is not the original log cabin, but a restored version made to look exactly like the original. 

Being able to spend some time in the Sacred Grove was a very special experience.

We then visited the Grandon book store in downtown Palmyra where the first 5000 copies of the book were actually printed. We appreciated the work of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to bring this precious work forward. 

The sister missionaries gave wonderful tours at each church history site. 

We also visited the Peter Whitmer farmhouse whete the church was organized in 1830. 

We saw the actual room where part of the Book of Mormon translation work took place.

After visiting the Palmyra Temple, we returned to New York City.

Big city life always involves riding the subway trains. 

We were able to visit the Manhattan temple and do baptisms for over 50 family names. Our grandsons did the baptizing. That was a special event.

We were able to take in Aladdin, an excellent Broadway play.

We finished the week by touring Manhattan by bus and by ferry. 

We saw the new one World Trade Center building, which is the highest building in the Americas. 

A visit to the reflecting pools where the twin towers once stood was a sobering event. 

All in all, we had a wonderful week.