Goodbye Waynesboro, PA

April 21, 2014

     Nate got a call with a job offer working for the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections in Nampa, ID. They wanted him to begin working on May 12 which was only 3 weeks away! We quickly started getting things in order as well as started packing up our tiny apartment. Though the call was an answer to our prayers, the fact that we were actually leaving our first home, the place that we became a family, was bittersweet and harder than we expected. 

Our first home.

May 6, 2014

     So we sold our furniture, said goodbye to our wonderful ward and our great friends, and set off on our 2,380 mile drive across the country, this time with a baby. I'll admit, I cried multiple times. Living away from family really was a blessing. It taught Nate and I to rely on each other for everything. It taught us how to live on a tight budget. And it is where we became a family instead of a couple. A part of my heart will always be in Waynesboro.

Saying bye to Lexi.

     We left PA about 1:30pm and drove through Maryland, West Virginia, back through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and stopped about 2am in a Walmart parking lot in Dansville Illinois. Funny enough we stopped for dinner in West Virginia at the same place we stopped 14 months ago when we were moving to PA. It was some delicious mexican food! 

dinner in WV.

     Spencer's first blowout happened on this leg of the journey. We had poop for days! The next morning we got up and drove to Nauvoo, IL where we toured around Carthage jail and Old Nauvoo. It was an interesting day, we took a wagon ride around Nauvoo and it thundered and lightninged and rained so hard and as soon as we got off the wagon to walk around the town the sun came up and it got sunny and hot!

wagon ride in Nauvoo.

Carthage jail and the window Joseph Smith fell from and died.

bullet holes still in the door.

the window from the inside.

     We toured around Nauvoo for a while, we visited the Lucy Mack Smith home, the blacksmith shop (my favorite), the Brigham Young house, the brick yard, the bake shop, etc. Such a cute place with lots of fun things to do and see. We ran into some relatives of Nate's (his mom's cousin?) that were on a mission there and later that evening we met up with my great aunt and uncle who are serving as temple missionaries! It was fun to see them since we hadn't since our wedding. They were so gracious and fed us dinner and volunteered to babysit Spencer for an hour while we went to a show put on by other missionary couples. It was nice to get to enjoy the show with just each other and Spencer had a good time playing with Aunt Sue and Uncle Pete! After the show we hopped in the truck for some more driving!

upstairs in the Lucy Mack Smith house.

the women's garden.

Rendezvous in Old Nauvoo.

     We stopped somewhere in Iowa and decided since we hadn't had a shower we'd stay at a hotel. We picked a moderately priced one, not a super cheapy gross one...BAD IDEA! We walk into the room and set out stuff down. Nate jumps in the shower and I inspect the beds for bed bugs. Didn't see anything too suspicious so I began to change Spencer and get him ready for bed. I pulled the blankets on my half of the bed down and started nursing him. I suddenly had a thought to pull the other side down. I did and I noticed a redish brown spot on the sheet. I thought it was just a stain so I ignored it. Then I had a thought to not ignore it. So I looked closer and to my horror it was a bed bug!!! UGH!!!! I was sooo annoyed, disgusted, and just mad!!

little traveler!

     I grabbed a cup from the counter and caught the bug. I packed all of our stuff up as fast as I could and yelled to Nate to hurry, I was not staying in this hotel one minute longer than I had to! We went to the front desk where I set the cup on the counter and said, "I'm sorry, we can;t stay here. I found a bed bug in my bed!" The front desk clerk said, "sorry" and did something on the computer, handed me a refund receipt and we left! NO WAY was I dealing with those awful bugs again!!! 

our load that made it possible to only get 9 miles per gallon!

     So since I had some adrenaline going we decided to drive a few more hours, after we dropped some bug bombs in the trailer for safe measure! We drove till about 2am and stopped in Pella, Iowa and slept in the Walmart parking lot!! :) In the morning we discovered it was actually a really cute town with windmills and tulips and Dutch influences.

somewhere in Ohio.

Blackberries.

5/2/14
This morning I fed Spencey some blackberries for he first time, he was a mess but he LOVED them and gnawed on 5! He somehow even managed to get it on his forehead? He stained just about everything in sight, but it was worth it to watch him go crazy over them! Oh, and Nate said he had pink spit up afterward as well.

Palmyra and Niagara NY

     After we visited the Joseph Smith farmstead we wandered into the little town of Palmyra to see the Book of Mormon publication site. I think this was on of my favorite things.
     We toured the old building and saw where and how the first 5,000 books were printed. The building had obviously been added on to, but in some places still had the original creaky wood floors which was neat. An interesting story we heard here was the E.B. Grander at first told Joseph he couldn't print the book because he knew how much drama there was about the whole situation and he didn't want to be a part of it. Later, he was telling his friends who were a part of the mob that he had told Joseph no and they responded by telling him he should print it, he was in the business of printing to make money to support his family and they understood that, so he could print the book.

     My favorite part of that tour was seeing the whole process of how they actually printed the books. It looked very tedious and time consuming, not to mention messy! They also had one of the original books in a glass case where the missionary told us if it got messed with Salt Lake would know it before her just because of all the security surrounding it, but you'd never know it was so heavily guarded just by looking! When we were done there we went next door to an LDS bookstore and ran into a guy who had been in my ward in Rexburg in 2007! Small world!
     We then decided we would drive out to see Niagara Falls even though we'd heard from everyone it was a better view from Canada and we didn't have our passports. It was still pretty amazing to see. It was a pretty drive out there as well and even though we couldn't see it, we drove along the Ontario Lake coast the whole way there. The falls was pretty awesome, and wouldn't you know it we ran into the couple from Idaho that we had toured the Joseph Smith farmstead with. They were nice enough to take a picture of all of us.
     When we finished at the falls there was still one more historic church site we hadn't been to because it was about 45 min. out of the way from Palmyra and that was the Peter Whitmer home where the church was restored. It closed at dusk so we hurried over there to try to see it really quick. Right as we pulled up the senior missionary couple was walking out the door and the husband asked if we'd come back tomorrow which meant we had to camp another night which I really didn't want to do. The wife then said, "let's just do one more tour, we have nothing to hurry home to." And we greatly appreciated that they stayed for us!

Canada.

     The visitors center there was this beautiful building that had a chapel that was housed the local ward, so that was cool. The house itself was another replica built on the same foundation and was bigger than both Smith homes.

     Some cool stories and facts from here,
     When David decided he wanted to be a part of the Book of Mormon translating process, Oliver and Joseph were in Harmony, PA and needed a new place to stay and translate. Peter Whitmer told David that after he finished planting the fields he could go down to Harmony and get them and bring them back. I forget what exactly he had to do after planting that would take so long, but it was going to be 3 more days before he'd be able to leave. Well the next morning when he woke up the fields were planted and this other turf stuff he'd had to lay was spread. He went to his sisters to thank them and they said it wasn't them, that they had seen 3 men doing it and thought David had hired them. So with the fields being done and planted he was able to leave earlier than planned. Meanwhile in Harmony, Joseph told Oliver they needed to get there stuff ready to go, that David was on his way even though David wasn't supposed to be on his way and they weren't supposed to be leaving for another few day. Joseph had seen a vision of David coming toward them and sure enough he was there shortly thereafter and they were able to leave sooner than expected.
      The upstairs room of this house is where the beginning (last plates) of the Book of Mormon was translated. Sounds like they translated the plates in reverse so they started with the end of the Book of Mormon and ended with the beginning.

the only picture we took of the house, ha.

     This was also the site where the 1980 general conference broadcast started from. When the church sited were dedicated, President Kimball stood in front of the Whitmer fire place to begin conference, it went to Salt Lake for speakers, and ended in the chapel next door with President Kimball dedicating all the buildings. I believe that was the 150th conference and also happened to fall on April 6 which we know is when the church was formed in the same location. The sister at the Book of Mormon publication site also said she believes the 200th general conference will be broadcast from somewhere but I can't remember if she said where she thought it would be.
     I also learned that though the church was organized with only 6 members, there were more than 80 people at the home watching this organization take place. Some were children, but it was clear whether the rest were just spectators or what.
     A final piece of information I learned was that Joseph had the gold plates for about 2 years but it only took 65 days to translate them. It took 2 years to get 65 days due to the fact he kept having to move around in order to find peace and safety.
     We left the Whitmer Farm about 8pm and decided rather than have another sleepless night,this time with rain, that we would just drive home. It was looong but Spencer did awesome and slept almost the whole way and we never had to stop once! We were home by 2am. It was a short trip, but so worth it!
   
     Oh, turns out we did get a picture of the Joseph Smith frame home, thanks Nate.

and the girl is the sister missionary who gave us the tour.

Palmyra, NY

     One of the things we had talked about for sure doing while we were living in PA was visiting all the church historical sites in Palmyra, NY so a few weeks ago I picked a random weekend, reserved a camp site, and planned a trip. Luckily, we picked our last full weekend here! I'm going to break this into a few different posts because we packed a TON into our trip!

Sunday April 27,
     After church we hurried and packed up the truck and took off on the 5 1/2 hour drive to northern New York. We weren't sure how Spencer would do but he surprisingly did well and we only stopped once to feed and change him. We made it to our camp site about 7pm and set up our tent and then headed over to the Hill Cumorah visitor's center. There we learned about all the different church sites in the area and the significant events that took place at each of them. We watched a video and read about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. And we met a sister missionary from Boise who knew some of the same people so that was fun! By the time we were done in the visitor's center it was too dark to walk up to the Moroni statue so we went back to our campsite where Nate made some bomb hot dogs and then we went to bed.

     It was supposed to be a chilly night and I was very stressed about how it would go with a nursing baby. For our wedding we had received a tent and a family sleeping bag, neither of which we ever used so this was our first chance and we loved them both! I shockingly didn't get too cold throughout the night (except my ears) and every time I'd check on Spencer, he was nice and toasty. But I still didn't sleep well just because it was a different environment and I was worried about the baby. It was not as miserable as I had anticipated :)
     We heard there was a 100% chance of rain that night and I did NOT want to have to deal with that so we decided to try to see everything we had planned in 1 day instead of 2. So once we were up we were moving getting stuff put away and ready to go.

we survived!

just checking out the campground.

the pond at the campground.

Monday April 28,
     Our first stop was back to the Hill Cumorah to walk up to the spire on the hill. It's interesting that at the top of the hill you can look out in every direction and it is nothing but flat lands. It is the only hill for miles and miles. We just thought that was an interesting not-coincidence.

     As we walked up the the statue there was 2 younger guys leaving. and as we were leaving we passed an older couple walking up to the statue (they will both come into play later on).
     We then drove over to the Palmyra temple and walked around its grounds and admired it. It is a beautiful building with beautiful stained glass of the sacred grove in every window. We tried to get some pictures but because it was early morning the lighting wasn't great so they don't show off how gorgeous it really was.

this was the prettiest stained glass but you cant tell by the pic.

     After that we went to the Smith farmhouse and toured there. There was both a log home and I think the other was called the frame home, to tour. The log home was a recreation of the original, though it was on the same foundation. This was the home where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph for the first time. At the log home we ran into the 2 guys from the Hill Cumorah and laughed how we were just following them around everywhere. We also met up with the couple we had seen as we were leaving as well. They were from McCammon, ID and were on a roadtrip across the country. They had already been gone 3 weeks and were about to head back home.

getting Spence ready.

In the loft where Moroni appeared.

outside the log home.

the house itself.

     The frame home was pretty cool as it was 85% of the original home. It was one that Alvin, the oldest brother, had started and then he died before it could be completed and the Smith's had to hire men to finish it for them. This house had lots of neat storied connected to it and was also the house where Oliver Cowdrey came to live with them at before he learned who Joseph was and anything that situation entailed.

I guess I didn't take any pics of the frame house, this is looking from the grove to the Joseph Smith visitors center and log home.

     Out behind the house was an old barn where they would thresh wheat. It wasn't the original barn but was one taken from the farm Brigham Young grew up on. Next to that was a "cooper shed" where they would make barrels and other wooden tools or instruments.
     One cool story about the cooper shed was that at one point when the mob was after Joseph, he hid the plates beneath the floor boards there. He then had a thought that he needed to move them, so he hid them in the loft above under some straw and wood. In the morning when he came out to the shop, the floor had been completely ripped up and destroyed by the mob searching for the plates, but they hadn't looked up in the loft.
     Just beyond the fields of the farm was the sacred grove. I was slightly underwhelmed by it, which was probably a good thing. In my mind I was expecting some giant forest with magnificent trees and green everywhere and wildlife and whatever else. But it was just a quiet little forest like anywhere else. Flowers were just starting to bloom, but the trees were still bare from the winter. It was still peaceful and the spirit was so strong but it was not some place that was so different from anywhere else. I guess to me that was neat because it just made what happened there more real, like it wasn't some amazing spiritual place to begin with, it was made in to that and it helped me realize that we can make our own spiritual places, there aren't just specific places already in planned.

if you can see the rocks in this picture, they were all put there by Joseph and his brothers as a fence marking their property line.

     Another fact I hadn't realized was that it was not so unusual for Joseph or his family to go to the grove and pray. They did it often as a family so when Joseph went, it was not some crazy thing he just decided to do, it was something normal.
     It was awesome to see all these sites, it just made the whole story of Joseph Smith and what he did more real as I could learn about him as an average person and see where he lived and grew.