We made it to Palmyra! 2500 miles later... I'm sure
glad that I got to travel that by car. The pioneers were
some tough people!


Here we are in the Sacred Grove! All the leaves were
on the ground.. about 4 inches of them. It was a chilly
but lovely walk.


Every night we have to go up the hill and check to
make sure no one is trying to camp out with Moroni! If
not, we lock the gate and then go to bed.


"Our place" at night. Notice a lighted Moroni just
above us on the hill.


Our Front Window! Really the Visitor's Center
bay window. It is a beautiful room with a statue of
Christ as the focal piece. Just like our church!


Our little "Home Sweet Home". Our apartment is
on the far left, downstairs. Entrance far left window.
Bank of windows is our livingroom.

Our bedroom! Isn't it lovely!

Delores' bathroom. Note the personal little fan
in the corner of my cabnet... It's the best part!


Laundry room. Now if only we had a maid!
Oh yeah, I have Doug!


Guest room. Now doesn't this make you want to come
and see me???

Doug's bathroom.


The John Johnson Farmhouse in Kirtland. Front step
is where Joseph Smith taught from quite often. Room
to the right of the front door was where he was dragged
out and tarred and featherd.


The Ashery (left) and the Sawmill to the right behind it.
They could get the saw cranking to make a up and a down
stroke in less than a second! Pretty good for those pioneers!


Newell K. Whitney Store in Kirtland. The upstairs
is where the School of the Prophets was held.


Kirtland Temple

November 16, 2005: It has been "forever" since we have been able to write to you and let everyone know what is going on. The last blog entry was a couple of weeks ago just after Nauvoo and Carthage. We have been around the block since then let me tell you.

We stopped at Kirtland to see the "Mormon" sites. The little village is wonderful and so nicely restored. We got to go into the Whitney store and sit in the room where they had the "School of the Prophets". Great things happened there… the spirit was really strong. The other buildings were really nice too. The sawmill was very interesting. I just kept thinking that Dad would have loved to see this and figure how it worked!

We went out to the John Johnson Home where Joseph and Emma lived for a while. This is where Joseph was taken out in the night, beat up, tarred and feathered and told that he wouldn’t preach again around here! The next day he "preached a sermon" on the steps of the Johnson home to the members, and it really got to the mob. That was also the night that their little son was left in the front room with the door open as the Mob took Joseph out. (His son was sick with the measles and was being watched by Joseph so Emma could get some sleep.) The draft led to the boy’s death within a few days.. Many sections of the Doctrine and Covenants were recordedat the Johnson home. It was a special place. Because Doug and I were the only ones there that morning, and because we were missionaries, they let us sit in the upstairs room for a while alone. It was wonderful.

Then we rushed back to Kirtland (if being lost for an hour is rushing) so that we could see the Kirtland Temple. It now belongs to the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) Church. It was a beautiful building and it was such an undertaking for those poor saints. It must have been awful when they left it behind as they moved on.

We finally got to Rochester, NY, and to our mission presidents home on Wednesday the 8th of November. We got to eat dinner with them and then visit for a while. President Layton remembered Russell from their missions. It was fun to talk with him. We spent the night there and the next morning came out to the historic sites. We had very nice weather all of the way here, except for a little wind. As soon as we got to Rochester it started to rain so hard!!! It rained for the next 3-4 days. Not wimpy little Utah rain…. It rained buckets full!!! Hopefully we will not get webs between our toes while we are here.

We live in the apartments that are hooked onto the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center. They did a really nice job making them look like part of the building, but they are actually not connected at all. Our apartment is really nice. We have two bedrooms, two baths, laundry room, kitchen, dinning room, and living room. Our bedroom has two big closets and that is nice. With two bathrooms, Doug and I can get ready in the morning at the same time, and that helps. There are always plenty of things to get done in the mornings.

We got 2 hours of training at each of our historical sites on Thursday and Saturday… it was so much information that our heads were spinning. Monday morning at 8:45, we were at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center (HCVC) on our own… well, no Senior Missionaries. We did have 2 darling sister missionaries there to help us and keep us out of trouble. Tuesday we were all alone (no sisters this time) at the Smith Frame House site. We had a few tours that we conducted and I think we did all right. Wednesday morning we were at the Grandin Printing Press building all alone until the sisters came in at 11:00 am. I gave a tour to a 4 year old boy named Hyrum.. Doug helped with a couple from California. We are glad that it is really slow here in the winter. It will give us time to get our feet on the ground before "tourist season" and before Pageant! They say that there are thousands of people each day when the pageant is on. Each night over 9,000 people are here to see it. It is a very big deal…. And crazy! That will be in our backyard, on the side of the Hill Cumorah.

Because we live here, each night we have to drive up the hill and make sure that no one is up at the Moroni monument, then come down and lock the gate to the Hill. We say that we are locking Moroni in each night so he can’t get away! In addition to everything else, Doug is kept busy with the finances of the historical sites, being in charge of the HCVC and all of the electronics, movies, microphones, setting up for meetings, etc. While he is there doing that, I am trying to catch up with all the news. The bad thing is, we have no internet and it is killing us! We cannot send or RECEIVE letters! Hopefully within a few weeks we will have that fixed. In the meantime I am going to try to keep up on the letters for the blog… I can just put them in when we get internet!

Until then, we love you! We will write again soon! dnd