The Great 2013 Vacation: Palmyra (Day 1)

As I prepare to chronicle week 2 of our vacation, I find myself contemplating an added approach.  Up until now, I've given a blow by blow account of the highlights of each day with some general observations.  However, I recall saying in my introductory post that I wanted to also give an account of what this vacation meant to me.  During this second week, I had some thoughts that I would also like to share.  Based on this desire, I will continue to give an account of our daily activities, but I will then follow up with a supplementary "impressions" post which will detail what each of the church history stops taught me (you, the reader, can decide on whether or not to read one, both or neither).

Before leaving New Jersey, Jennifer wanted to visit the grave site of her Grandmother Rockwell and a friend of the family who was called "Aunt" Helen even though she wasn't blood related.  Helen Shaw lived to be 105 and died on the same day my nephew Joseph was born.  There was a "circle of life" kind of symmetry to it as we learned about her passing and then his birth a few hours later.  The George Washington Memorial Cemetery was located only about six or seven miles from the Best Western.  After loading up the car and checking out of the hotel, we found the cemetery after a bit of extra driving (the map seemed to confuse another cemetery with the one we were looking for) and stopped at the office to get directions (the grave sites turned out to be not far from one another).  It didn't take too long to find both sites.  Jennifer asked for her picture to be taken with both markers and asked for a little private time.  Having completed the last goal of her stay in NJ, Jen was ready with the rest of us to begin the second half of our trip.

      

                   Aunt Helen & Uncle Harry                              Grandma Rockwell



One of my main goals in planning was to make sure we were always moving forward.  I didn't really want to backtrack to visit any of the Church sites we wanted to see.  To this end, I realized that we needed to first stop at the Peter Whitmer, Sr. farmhouse (where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formally organized) and then travel on to Palmyra.  I guess you could say we were putting the end of the New York chapter of Church history in front of the beginning, but I didn't think this was a bad thing.  Sometimes looking at an event out of sequence can offer a different perspective.  I have to admit to being a little bummed by the map directions.  Thirteen years ago after visiting the Whitmer farmhouse, our route back to Ringwood had taken us past one of the Finger Lakes.  I was excited to return and see this area again.  There is a lot of beautiful country to be seen in New York state.  Sometimes I wonder if people think the state of New York is nothing more than an extension of New York City.  But I was a bit disappointed to find that our route took us between the two largest Finger Lakes in such a way that we didn't get to see either one.  There was a moment, however, when we could see green farmlands stretching out below us for miles--it was quite an amazing view.

Since we did more driving on rural roads with slower speed limits, it took us longer to get to the farmhouse then I had anticipated.  A week before we left on our trip, Jennifer had made an appointment with the Palmyra Temple for the 7:30 endowment session.  As we pulled into the parking lot of the farmhouse, I realized this would be our only Church history stop for the day.  We entered the visitor's center and met a senior missionary couple who turned us over to Sister Vasquez from Spain to be our tour guide.  I have previously mentioned how we watched the videos I took of our New Jersey trip 13 years ago before leaving on this trip.  The basic information offered by Sister Vasquez was generally the same as we heard before, but I am always fascinated how two people can teach the same material in completely different ways.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Elder who took us through the visitor's center didn't do a good job, but there was something about Sister Vasquez that made us all seem to pay closer attention.  She had such a nice, simple testimony of the organization of the church.  Her emphasis on the similarities in the church organization in the time of Christ to the restoration to what we enjoy today stood out to all of us.  When she talked about the priesthood, she asked Ben and Isaac how they felt to be holders of this sacred power and helped to focus them on the authority they held.  As she took us through the farmhouse, she asked us to think about what it was like for those original church members of 1830 and how we are similar to them today.  It was a very nice experience.

Restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood



 Jen & Sister Vasquez approach the farmhouse

 A different view of us standing in front of the farmhouse.

After leaving the Whitmer farmhouse, we drove the remaining 30 miles to the Palmyra Inn (located about a half mile from the temple and a mile from Smith log and frame homes and the Sacred Grove) and checked in.  The room was quite nice--king sized bed for Jennifer and me, two double beds for Ben and Isaac (the nicest room we stayed in on our trip).  We decided to try our luck at Subway again (a much better experience--good staff who listened to us and prepared our subs correctly) and ate our dinner back in the room.  By the time we finished, Jennifer and I needed to get ready for our temple session.  The two women at the front desk had mentioned a walking path to the temple that began on the north side of the inn.  At first, I thought it might be fun to walk, but by the time we were finished dressing, driving was the better option time-wise.

As we pulled into the parking lot and got our first look at the temple after thirteen years, a flood of memories rushed into my mind.  I pictured 3-year-old Ben excitedly running up the steps, waving his hand at the golden statue on the pinnacle of the temple, "Hi, Moroni!  We're going to eat lunch now!"  Ben pushing 10-month-old Isaac in his stroller and pointing out Moroni to his little brother; then moving the stroller closer and exclaiming, "Where did Moroni go?" as the walls of the temple hid the statue from his perspective.  As we walked toward the doors with their stained glass motif of the trees of the Sacred Grove, I saw the capstone on the southeast corner of the building proclaiming: Erected 2000 and pictured Ben touching that stone while trying very hard to say what was on his mind at that moment and only intermittently saying: "Jesus Christ . . . Joseph Smith . . . church."  With all of these good memories, we entered the temple to participate in the sacred ordinances that take place inside.  What I will mention about the Palmyra Temple is I was surprised by how small it is.  I think I really understood the size difference between it and the Redlands Temple when Jennifer and I entered the Celestial Room (the room symbolizing the place where Father in Heaven dwells) and found it to be half the size of what I am used to.  Even so, a spirit of peace, warmth and love filled the room and I quickly forgot about the size difference.

It was nearly 10 o'clock when we returned to the Inn to find Ben and Isaac watching a Batman movie.  I needed to go back to the car to get something from the trunk.  As I walked into the parking lot, I heard a sound I hadn't noticed earlier.  It was a sound I had never heard before--a thrumming noise as if someone had hooked the hind legs of thousands of crickets to an electric amplifier.  I can't think of another way to properly describe it, but I stood next to the car listening for a minute or two because I was so fascinated by it.  Returning to the Inn, I asked the same front desk workers about the sound.  They told me it was the cicadas.  After seventeen years of hibernation, they had hatched and were making the noise I had heard.  I guess if we had made this trip some other year, I wouldn't have heard this amazing sound.