Jason's senior pictures

The Dodges came to Corvallis to pick up Jessica and Michael's ailing car and decided to take advantage of Michael's photographing skills and get Jason's senior pictures taken. We climbed up to Cronmiller Lake. That trail seems to have gotten steeper over the years. It was beautiful with the leaves turning.

The whole family (I pushed the button)

Michael, the creative photographer

We also got the exciting news today that Carl's persistence has paid off and he got a job! He will be a Data Conversion Operator with the United States Postal Service! He'll be working in an encoding center about 10 miles from their house. Letters that can't be read by the machines are sent there for real people to read and type in the address. Since he's a very fast typist, he'll do well. (If he can figure out the handwriting.) He'll continue to look for a librarian position, but in the interim this is a good job. Go Carl!

Another mission!

I'd like to explain this better for those interested.

Some months ago they announced at our shift at the temple that anyone interested in serving a 6-month mission (during the tourist season) at the Nauvoo Temple should write a letter to the Portland Temple president expressing that interest. So we did and were told that 10 other couples had applied and there would be more. They could only send in 3 couples' names to Salt Lake and of those only 2 couples would be called. So pretty competitive. We didn't think we'd get chosen. But one of the counselors in the temple presidency, President Ross, lives in our ward and encouraged us. He and his wife have served in the Nauvoo Temple and they said we'd really enjoy it. They must have put in a good word for us.

We report there April 21, 2012 and serve until late October. Emily and Jason have volunteered to take care of our house for us while we're gone.

While we were there on the tour recently we met the temple president and his wife, Spencer J. and Dorothea Condie. I looked him up on Wickipedia. He's Dad's age, served a mission in southern Germany where he met his wife, and they have 5 children. He was a mission president in Austria and is now an emeritus seventy.

We'd love to have you visit us while we're in Nauvoo. We will be sorry to miss the family reunion at Camp Alpine and Brenda's 40th birthday party and Laura's baptism. But we also feel very blessed to have this opportunity to serve in this special temple.

Day 1

We had a wonderful church history tour with the Mormon Heritage Association. It was 12 days long from Sept. 19 to Sept. 30, 2011. For great videos and clever time lapse photography of the trip, see Ken's blog at bugled.blogspot.com

We first flew to Buffalo, New York, with a long layover in Chicago.

After landing in Buffalo we met the rest of the 51 people on the bus and our tour director, Joe Staker and his son. We crossed the border into Canada and looked at the Niagara Falls.

Then we went to the Riverview International Buffet and checked in to our motel. Pam and Eldon and I used the swimming pool.

Day 2

We went on a Maid of the Mist boat tour of Niagara Falls. That was exciting! We got pretty wet, but fortunately they provided plastic rain capes.

We drove along the Niagara River. We stopped at Fort George where there was a big battle between the US and England.

Then the church history part of the tour began. We stopped at Mendon, New York. We stopped at the Tomlinson Inn where Samuel Smith sold a copy of the Book of Mormon to Phineas Young.

At the Mendon Cemetery we visited the grave of Miriam, Brigham Young's first wife. Also Vilate Kimball. Brenda told about her. This was on one of the graves: "Nor friend nor physician could save This body from the mouldering grave."

We had a catered supper at a building that was a church during the time the Youngs and Kimballs lived in Mendon. Brigham may have helped build it. After the dinner we had a presentation about the Young Family. The parents were played by a cute little couple from Australia--Mal and Val Dearden. Their eleven children each were represented. Eldon was Brigham and Ken was Phineas. They told about the struggles and hardships of each of the children and then ended with this question posed by the father, John Young: "If all of us could go through all of those trials and hardships and none of us ever quit, is there any reason any of you should ever give up in the face of trials?" I thought about our family and how each of our kids has trials and hope none of them ever gives up!

Day 3

We drove into Palmyra, noticing all the churches. At the Sacred Grove we walked as a group a ways in where we sang "Oh How Lovely Was the Morning" led by Neil. Then the bus driver and his wife sang "In the Garden." Then we walked further in on our own and had time for contemplation. We saw remains of the rock wall foundation the Smiths had built.

We toured the Smith log home. It is September 21st, the anniversary of when the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith in the upstairs bedroom!

We went out to Martin Harris' home. It has been replaced with one made of river rock.

We saw the grave of Alvin, Joseph's older brother.

Joe Staker, our tour director

We visited the Grandin Press and bookstore.

Hill Cumorah

At the Palmyra Temple we had a group picture taken. The temple president came out and left the door open so we could see through to the other side where President Hinckley had a clear area of the window left so you could see down to the Sacred Grove. All the stained glass windows are of the sacred grove.

We relaxed on the lawn.

At the visitors centers below Hill Cumorah we watched the touching movie about the first vision.

Supper was at a Chinese buffet.

Day 4

We went to Harmony, Pennsylvania. The bulk of the Book of Mormon was translated in the Jesse Hale cabin. Emma described it as Joseph using a seer stone placed in a hat and then he would block out the light with his face and dictate. She and her brother scribed until Oliver Cowdrey came. We saw the grave of Joseph and Emma's first baby son, Alvin. The old marker has been encased in a new one. Also those of Emma's parents, who never saw her again after they left Harmony.

Then we hiked down a steep muddy trail to the Susquehanna River where the Aaronic Priesthood was restored. This was a beautiful spot. The bus driver and his wife sang a song. Jonathan and Pam and Neil gave presentations. Neil's was Oliver Cowdery and he tried to sound like Oliver would have. Jonathan was the disgruntled Isaac Hale who thought Joseph had kidnapped Emma. Pam's was Emma.

We drove to the Elmira College where we visited the library and heard a lecture about Mark Twain by a lady professor who is an expert. She also showed us his study, an octagonal room that has been moved to the campus.

Samuel Clemens was a reporter in New York City. He went on a trip to Europe and met his future wife, Olivia's brother from Elmira, New York. then he met her and married. Their first son died young. They spent their summers in Elmira where he could write. They had three more daughters. Susie died young. Jean had epilepsy and died on Christmas Eve in the bathtub. Olivia married a Russian pianist.

We visited Mark Twain's grave. His daughter put up a monument to him and her husband that was two marks high. Two marks meant the river was deep enough for safe passage. Samuel/Mark had worked as a steamboat captain on the Mississippi in his younger days.

Day 5

We went to the Fairport Harbor. I read a part about how Lucy Smith led a group there from Palmyra to Kirtland. She was pretty feisty. It was so stormy we read it on the bus instead of at the harbor. Ken lost his camera there but Paul Egbert found it in an overhead bin!

Then we went to Kirtland. First we stopped at the Morley Farm. Karl Ricks Anderson, who wrote a book about Kirtland (which we bought) gave a lecture at the visitors center. He said that the saints spent more time in Kirtland than in Nauvoo and Joseph received more revelations there! That puts it in perspective. We walked up a hill towards where a log school house was where the first High Priests were ordained.

Our visit to the Kirtland Temple was amazing, mainly because they let us sing "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning." I played and Brenda led. They even had an LDS hymnbook on the piano!  The Community of Christ owns it and has a nice visitors center there and they keep the grounds lovely.  When we visited it before it was run down and not cared for, so it was nice to see the difference.

Neil and Brenda

The Whitney Store was interesting. There is an LDS visitors center there too so we saw a movie about what happened there. The town of Kirtland was convinced to move the road that ran through the middle of the sites. They refused until they saw a photo of Steve Young on the cover of a magazine wearing a t-shirt that read "I love Kirtland, Ohio." They said if they could get a poster of that magazine cover (plus the 15 million they had already been offered) they would move the road. So now you can walk around to the sawmill, the ashery, the school house and the Whitney store and home.

The Williams and Dan, the bus driver, and his wife

 

Emma's table

In the evening we went to the Kirtland Stake Center for a pizza party.