Nathan, our grandson with his mission call to Madrid, Spain, came to visit Palmyra and his girlfriend, Kendall who has her mission call to the Philippines.  Kendall received her endowments in the Palmyra Temple and here we are in front of the temple. 

Then we took very quick tours of the sites.  Here is Elder Poulson (aka Grandpa) and Nathan entering the Welcome Center at the Smith Farm.

Nathan and Kendall inside the Smith Log Cabin.  And Grandpa & Kendall outside the cabin.

Nathan on the road/path to the Smith Frame Home with the Palmyra Temple in the background.  He is one happy boy.

   

Grandpa and Nathan with the apple orchard in the background.  It’s finally spring in Palmyra.

 

 Nathan in the Sacred Grove.  It was a rainy, thunder storm kind of afternoon.

Looking up at one of the “adversity trees”.

One of Sister Poulson’s ongoing jobs is to “bring all safety items up to date”.  One of the things that includes is checking every single building the Church owns here in our area (there are over 100).  Just one of the things I’m checking is the location and labeling of emergency shut off valves for things like water, electricity, natural gas, oil (yes we have some boilers here), and propane.  Most of the time I get Elder Poulson to go with me or I tag along with him as he’s assigned to work at a building that I also need to survey.  Here is Elder Poulson in the basement of the John Young home:

He is standing near our “modern” equipment which was not in the basement when John Young and his son, Brigham Young, built this home.  This is owned by the church and used to house senior missionaries who are serving in the Rochester, NY Mission Office.  There are actually two homes across the small street from each other. 

This is a picture of rough- hewn lumber in the basement.  It’s been there a very long time.  Half of the basement is a dirt floor probably used as a root cellar.  It is an experience to walk, crawl and move about these old, old places where prophets worked and walked.  Doing this assignment has taken me to places I’ve never even dreamed about. 

The Palmyra Stake Center is a beautiful building.  It’s exactly the same floor plan as our Cedar Hills Stake Center but the interior is beautiful and reminiscent of a much older time.  There is a large closet in the cultural hall that, in this building houses a chair rack, and ladders AND dozens of basketballs.  For some reason they keep the door locked and if the youth can’t get to the basketballs, they pull on the door until they pull it apart, sigh.

Here is Elder Poulson repairing the beautiful, dark wood door.  It took glue, clamps and replacing some wood, but it looks good as new, almost.

Also in the Palmyra building they installed a new fire alarm system box.  It required making a large hole that needed fixing with dry wall and plaster.  Our FM directors were hesitant to try to fix the wall so that it matched the rest of the wall.  Well, if you know Elder Poulson, you know he wasn’t hesitant at all.  Turned out great and everyone is happy, happy.

There is a large bank of public restrooms used mostly during the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  Our FM manager ordered new “waterless urinals” (yes, waterless) for the men’s restroom.  (Haven’t been used yet as the building is closed for the winter until next month.)  Anyway, when all 10 urinals were installed they were too high on the wall, sigh.  So they assigned Elder Poulson to make a “step” to accommodate using them.  Here he is in the process of building the step.

All done and waiting for the “summer opening” of the pageant restrooms.

Elder Poulson and the Temple President, Tom Brighton, have become fast friends and gardening buddies.  They have set up an indoor gardening spot at the FM yard.  Here’s proof that spring IS on the way, some of their sprouts coming up.

And here’s the pond at the Temple President’s residence.  It sits between the residence and the Temple.  The Canadian Geese are coming back  (can you see them?….another evidence that spring will come to Palmyra, someday soon.

Elder Poulson was assigned to remodel the caretaker’s house at the Seneca Lake Girls’ Camp.  It is a very old house and the bathroom was in very bad shape.  At first they were going to tear out the old bathtub and put in a new one, but Elder Poulson found a man that refinishes tubs for a reasonable price.  (side note here:  I’m sure that man stays very busy as there are nothing but very, very, very old houses here that people live in and remodel the inside, I hope).

A picture of the beautiful finished tile backsplash:  

A new vanity for the room and notice the tile floor too.  It’s a whole new bathroom.

The Palmyra Temple was shut down for its 2 week cleaning and refurbishing.  We both had lots of work assigned to us in the temple, mostly in the attic.  I was assigned to order a fabric stand like the ones you see in Joann’s home decoration fabrics.  Then I gathered up the rolls and rolls of upholstery fabric stored in the attic and organized them onto the fabric stand.  No pictures of this project, or the one Elder Poulson worked on since they were in the temple.  But, while we were in the attic we ventured out onto the roof of the temple to help a fellow worker with his assignment.  Here is Elder Poulson and our friend, Geoffrey.  They are not all the way up to Moroni because it is a very tight fit inside the temple to get that high.  I may try it next time though.

This is our friend, Geoffrey, going over the side to the lower level of the roof to change light bulbs.

Here I am as we were preparing to go back in through the “door” of the attic.  Notice the sunstone and the size of that “door”.

We work hard, but we’re having a great time here in “upstate New York”.  It’s missionary work unlike any other.  If it were not for those who keep the temples and sites going, there would be no place for converts or members or missionaries to go.  We love the work, the people we work with and the Lord.  We feel it a privilege to serve here in the “Cradle of the Restoration” where Joseph walked and talked with angels.

Here’s a picture of a replica of “Alvin’s Box”.  Alvin’s Box was used to store the gold plates when they were in Joseph’s possession.  Elder Poulson plans on making us a replica of this to have as a memory box. 

This picture was taken in the upstairs room of the Smith Farm Frame Home upstairs.  Visitors are not taken upstairs here because it has not been furnished or had anything done to it.  It is pretty much like it was in Joseph’s time.  This is actually a picture of the way the walls were constructed.  It is believed that this room was used for Lucy Mack Smith’s oil painting of oil cloth “rugs”.  On the stairwell wall there are child sized handprints in paint which have been protected by plexi-glass to preserve them.  I took pictures, but it was too dark  I will have to try again next time we’re up there.  It is not open to the public, but we have the “keys”.

Here we are in the Sacred Grove “on a beautiful, clear day early in the spring”.  It was a morning like this when Joseph went into the Grove to make his first prayer for which church to join.  Most often we see this day portrayed with lots of green leaves on the trees and the sun filtering through the trees.  Perhaps it was like that in the year 1820, but I doubt it.  It was most likely a clear, cool day and the leaves were probably just coming out, if at all.

Here is Elder Poulson standing by the “Jack Tree”.  There’s a story that goes with this, but it is too long to add here.  We will tell you all about it sometime.  It is or was standing in the Sacred Grove when Joseph knelt there to pray and is therefore a “witness” tree.  It had become diseased and old and fulfilled its time standing in the Grove.  Because it was deemed dangerous, the caretaker of the grove, Bob Parrott, had to cut it down.  It made us all very sad, but you can see from this picture just how diseased it was.  The inside of the tree was completely gone and was and is home to lots of critters.  Truly, it is the end of a very important era. 

Here is some early spring green trying to make its appearance in the Sacred Grove.