Minnesota Nelsons: July 2009

The youth in our ward recently took a trip to visit the church history sites in upstate New York and Kirtland, Ohio. Since Todd is the YM President, I got to tag along as a chaperone. Also, as hard as it may be to believe Whitney is 12 now so she got to go too. It was a great trip. We left Thursday, July 9th in the afternoon and got back around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14th. That may not seem like a long time, but we saw a lot of things. The first day we visited Niagara Falls in the morning and then attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant in the evening. On Saturday, we were able to go to the Palmyra temple. An interesting thing about the Palmyra temple is that it is the only temple with a clear window. The window looks out over the Sacred Grove. The view was impressive. After we went to the temple we visited the Smith Farm. On Sunday we had the privilege of having Sacrament Meeting in the Sacred Grove. That was the highlight of the trip for me. We also visited the Grandin Building, where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were published, and the Whitmer Farm. The next day we drove to Kirtland, Ohio and visited the sites there which included the Kirtland Temple, Whitney Store, Isaac Morley Farm and the John Johnson Farm. I've been to quite a few church history sites. I've been to Nauvoo, Salt Lake City, Martin's Cove, Winter Quarters and more, but none of them made as deep an impression on me as the sites we visited on this trip.

We also had an opportunity to visit with my sister Cecily and her family who came from New York City to see us (and the pageant too). My little nephews made me miss Dustin who was at home with Grandma and Papa. By the way, my parents were awesome for coming out to Minnesota to watch the younger kids while we were gone. As Lauren likes to say, "You Rock!!"