Oh How Lovely Was the Morning

For Spring Break, Josh and I took a Church History Tour, starting in Palmyra and ending in St. Louis. We took the red-eye from Portland and ended in Rochester, then immediately(!) drove to Peter Whitmer's farm in Fayette, NY.

For those who don't know, my religion was officially organized on this spot in 1830. The real building is no longer standing, but this recreated cabin is on the spot of the original foundation. The first church meeting took place in front of this fireplace:

They now have a meeting house on the farm grounds. Can you imagine your ward meeting on the site where the church was organized? Craziness!

The visiting center and chapel

We got a little shock driving through town when someone was driving ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! Apparently that's the way they do it in upstate NY. 

We then went to the Hill Cumorah, where we saw this christus in the visitor's center:

And we hiked to the top of the hill:

The cool thing about being there was seeing that this hill is super narrow and a great vantage point. Josh said he could imagine watching a battle because you can see forever on both sides.

There was also a statue of what is supposed to be Moroni:

(Even though he has a beard)

Also, the Hill Cumorah is A LOT steeper than you would think. 

Then we went to the E.B. Grandin printing shop, where the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon were published:

I have to say that there were some really lovely sister missionaries at all of these sites, but the girl at the the E.B. Grandin store was pretty awesome. She even lifted up the cloth on the fake plates so Josh could take a picture:

She was my favorite, and I especially loved her owl earrings

Then we went to the site of the Smith family farm, where there is the reconstructed log cabin:

And the reconstructed room where Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith (again):

The Palmyra temple overlooks the farm:

We also went to the Sacred Grove:

Where Josh took these creepy, stalkery pictures:

We then did a session at the Palmyra temple (#38!). It's a smaller temple, similar to Reno, Medford, Kona, etc., so I didn't get lost. The session was ridiculously full and they had to bring in folding chairs for pretty much every possible space.

The major defining feature of this temple is the stained glass of the grove:

It also has a window in the lobby where you can look out onto the grove:

from the outside (we do NOT take pictures inside the temple)

We were pretty severely jet-lagged so, despite wanting to be awake and attentive, Josh and I both fell asleep during the session. It was pretty embarrassing when the woman next to me had to shake me awake. 

After the session, we drove to Niagara Falls, where we stayed in a beautiful hotel overlooking the falls. We're definitely going back there again.