Speaking

As we arrived and began unpacking our things here in Sunderland, Suzy and I made predictions on when we would get callings and when we would have to speak. I am pleased to announce that, as of today our second Sunday, we still have no callings, which we were sure we would have by now. I think that it was because the bishop has been out of town.

However, we received the dreaded call Wednesday evening asking us to speak today. That was much quicker than we anticipated. Our assigned topic was, "Share your favorite scripture and a personal experience, and you are the only two speakers." Luckily, they called a new member of the bishopric and he and his wife bore their testimonies and took up quite a bit of time. Our talks went well, and they are over with, I think we are safe for the next about 4-6 months. It was a balancing act to prepare a good talk but not too good, we don't want to be speaking too often, which is a definite danger in our ward.

This last week has been a busy and fun one. We had intended to go to Six Flags down in Springfield, but the weather was unseasonably cool, which was a nice break from the hot humid weather when we arrived, I enjoyed it much more than Suzy did. We traveled out to Boston to go to the temple, which is a very nice one; it just explodes at you on the freeway, though not quite like San Diego or DC do. After the temple we went to Minute Man National Park, where the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought, the first blood of the revolutionary war. That was very interesting, we learned things about those first battles that they did not teach in school.

The ward Relief Society had a retreat to Camp Joseph in Sharon, Vermont (the birthplace of Joseph Smith, about 90 miles north of us). She had a wonderful time. On Friday, the priesthood holder that they had going with them had to cancel due to illness, so they asked me to go as the priesthood holder. I enjoyed it too. It is a beautiful part of Vermont, very mountainy compared to here. It was a relaxing weekend, except for the sleeping part. We had small cabins that fit two sets of bunk beds, which were short and not so comfortable. Overall, we had a good time and enjoyed the Visitors Center at the birthplace; it was a nice conclusion to our little Church history tour.

This next week will be busy as we prepare for school and get the rest of our to-do items off the list.

We cannot find the camera right now, but when we do a few pictures will be posted.

Moving In...

So we finally made it here to our cozy, little apartment. Our stuff seemed a lot heavier as we had to carry it all up to the third floor. Luckily the missionaries were able to come help us out with the stuff that was too heavy for just the two of us. We spent Thursday just getting all the boxes in and Friday and Saturday trying to figure out where to put it all. We still have more to put away, but we finally got the big desk assembled which gives a place to put a lot of stuff.

Today we went to the Amherst Ward. The people there are amazingly nice. They are very excited to have new people in the ward and I think they are already plotting which callings they will give us. They seem a bit short staffed in every organization, so they are all trying to get more people. The Relief Society is having a retreat this Friday and Saturday so I will be going with them to Sharon, Vermont - the place of Joseph Smith's birth. It should be a lot of fun. The members said they get together a lot and it sounds like they are a very close ward, so we are excited to be a part of it.

Next week we are planning to do a few fun things before Casey starts school, so we'll try to take some pictures to post.

Nearly Done Driving

These last 400 miles were some of the hardest, our bodies yearned to be done, but we had to press forward and push through the wall to make our destination.

After the 2600+ miles and 10 states that we have driven through, I would have to say that New York has the cleanest, smoothest and best patroled roads of them all. Of course they had better for the nearly $50 we paid in tolls driving through it. I cannot imagine how much money they rake in daily just from the semi-trucks alone. To top it off I am sure that their other taxes are just as high, gas there is the most expensive we saw on the trip, from $2.79ish in Pennsylvannia to $3.05ish once you cross the border. Wow.

Today was a fun day the driving notwithstanding. We stopped into Palmyra and saw the sites. I must say that the Hill Cumorah is very very steep, think the steepest part of the trail to Timp Caves, it is a good thing that it is not quite so high, and mst people cheat and drive to the top anyway (at least those not driving a huge moving truck and towing a car). The area is very beautiful full of greenery and blue skys. The weather was quite perfect, not too hot or too humid.

We then headed over to the Smith Family homestead and saw the frame and log homes of the Smith's. Very cool. And we had a very nice sister missionary take us around, it was her 23rd birthday. She was one of the best we have encountered on all our Mormon history stops. We got to wander out the Sacred Grove on our own. It is a peaceful, calming, beautiful place. I could of sat there all day. We enjoyed the calm of the grove in contrast with the stress of driving the truck amid semis wind and cars.

We then headed over to the E.B. Grandin Print shop where the BoM was first printed. One cannot appreciate the sacrifice and the expense that Martin Harris made to finance the BoM until you see the work that went into printing each copy. Wow is it hard, labor intensive work. It is no wonder that a copy sold for $1.25 (two full days wages at the time). The printing of 5,000 copies of one book with that process was crazy, but the right people were there at that right time. It took nearly 2 years to fulfill the order for 5,000 copies. We ate lunch at a nice little cafe that overlooked the Erie Canal, it was very nice.

We finally made it and are in Holyoke tonight and will finish the last few miles in the morning and begin the next painful process moving in tomorrow, during which we are forcasted to suffer through thunderstorms, so pray for us. :)

Picture one is the Sacred Grove and the second is in the upstairs of the log home where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph to tell him about the Book of Mormon. Enjoy the pictures.

Kirtland to Niagara

Today was a nice easy 200 miles.

We got to sleep in until a little after 8 as we knew that today would be a short day of driving. As we wandered over to our complimentary breakfast we saw a missionary and his parents eating. They were from Spain if I heard correctly and they were touring the Church history sites before they went back to Spain. I think that the hotel we were staying in was probably a popular one with LDS peoples since it is so close to the Kirtland sites.

We drove down the road a mere mile and were at the Church's visitors center were we toured the Newel K Whitney home and store on a tour with a family of 10 and the sister missionary. It was a nice tour, but took a bit longer than we thought that it would because of the kids.

We then headed up to the Temple site and just walked around the grounds, the Community of Christ, which runs the temple site, wants $2 for the tour and we were needing to get on the road.

It took us a little over 3 hours to make the drive up here to Buffalo, it was slow at times with construction but otherwise uneventful. We got here and were able to get off of the freeway just as traffic was really getting bad.

We checked into the hotel and headed back out to see Niagara Falls, which we were very excited about. With only moderate resistence from traffic we arrived in Niagara Falls, New York, and as we crossed one of the bridges we could already see the mist rising up from the Falls.

Deciding to go on the Maid of the Mist boat tour we headed down to the dock were we received out blue poncho and boarded the boat. In my experience ponchos are less than effective so I wondered how much good it would do as we neared the great falls especially with the wind. But somehow they held up much better than I thought and kept us dry with the exception of the exposed legs.

Niagara Falls is quite the impressive site. Amazing, beautiful, powerful, awe inspiring, the list could go on and on. I guess that now that I have been there I can check another thing off my list of things to do before I die. We are very happy with the choice to go on the boat tour, it was spectacular and you get to see an amazing up close view and experience with both sections of the Falls. I took video so that the sounds and wind could be fully appreciated, but for now I do not know how to post that to the site. I will make attempts at learning how, and if I fail I will email the video to all who would like me to do so. I hope that you can enjoy the pictures though they fail to capture the beauty and wonder of the place.

Day 4: The Longest Day

640 miles in 12 1/2 hours. We left a little later than we normally have been, so that we could miss rush hour in Chicago and Cleveland. We thought it should be a pretty easy drive, and going through Chicago and Cleveland were very eay. Unfortunately, we ran into bad construction east of South Bend, IN, that took us 30-45 minutes to get through the maybe 5 or 6 miles. See pictures of us stuck and bored in traffic.

Then a few miles later, we ran into another traffic jam that took us another 30 minutes or so to get through, and it turned out to be a nasty wreck, where a semitrailer tipped over and it looked pretty nasty. It was a good reminder to drive safe and be careful.

We slept really good when we finally got to the hotel.

We also finsihed Harry Potter, and we liked it a lot.

Today has been the longest day yet. We are very tired and had a lot of trouble with traffic. We will post more tomorrow morning.

The City of Joseph: Nauvoo

Today was a very nice and special day. We began at Church a few blocks away from the temple, and it was packed with several hundred people. They have a sacrement meeting just for visitors and for the missionaries in Nauvoo. After Church we went for a walk down Parley Street, which leads down to the river, it is the street that all the Saints came down as they left the city, it was a nice walk, and one can only imagine the emotions that they had as they walked away from their homes.

It was already very hot and humid by 10:30 am when most of the shops/homes opened. We went through many and enjoyed the tours. We really liked the brickyard, baker, and the Browning Gunsmith shop were particularly cool.

Later we went to Carthage, which was a very special place. It was interesting to walk through the jail and the grounds where he spent the last days of his life.

We finished the day at a casual fireside meeting with Vocal Point, the a capella group from BYU. They were good, the concert was really nice and we enjoyed the time there. Nauvoo is a really cool city to visit and we definately recommend visiting for anyone who has not been here yet.

The picture of Casey is at the John Browning Place, and the one of Suzy is at the Mansion House (owned by Joseph Smith).

Day 2: If you Build It They WIll Come

Only 650 miles and 11 hours today, so not as bad as yesterday.

Today Suzy got her first taste of driving the truck and she did not like it much. The wind was blowing hard across the freeway and the roads in Iowa are not the greatest. It takes a lot of concentration and work to fight the winds of the plains of Nebraska and Iowa. Luckily though we have not hit any bad weather, just hot and humid. But other than the winds and road conditions the truck has been pretty easy to drive. We have been able to average about 60 mph, and it is getting much better gas mileage than we thought that it would (about 10.5mpg).

We listened to Harry Potter for much of the day and are still liking it. We are eager to listen to it more.

We arrived in Keokuk at about 630 tonight. Our hotel is about a block or two from the Mississippi River. We went up to Nauvoo after putting all of our things in the hotel. We walked around the city for about 1 1/2 hours. We walked around the temple, town and ended the night at the visitors center right before closing. It is a really nice city and we are excited to go to church there tomorrow morning, and explore it after church.

We are including some of the pictures above that we took today. They are of Suzy driving, the Nauvoo Temple, the sunset over the Mississippi River and the endless miles of cornfields that we have seen over the past two days.

Tomorrow it will be nice to have a rest day and relax and enjoy the history, spirit and scenery of Nauvoo. It will be cool to walk the same roads and paths that Joseph Smith and my ancestors walked over 150 years ago.

Driving Day 1

Early today we began our truckin' across the USA. Total we drove 700 miles and 12 hours.

For the first two hours Suzy slept while Casey drove. But as soon as Suzy awoke, we began listening to Harry Potter book 7, in all we made it through 11 chapters. We like it a lot so far

The first picture is me as I am driving, I faked the smile. In reality I could not feel my body from the waist down. The second picture as we drove through Wyoming we saw some interesting rock formations, so we took a picture to represent what we were seeing for soooo many hours today.

Packing

Exhaustion. That is the word that best describes how we feel today. We have spent the last three days packing up all of our earthly possesions and loading them into a 16' moving truck. Today we are taking the day off to relax, recover, and prepare to move our stuff to Massachusetts, 2500 miles from here. Actually, we are already about 20 miles and 30 minutes into the journey since we are at my parents house in Orem, so 2480 miles, 6 days and too many hours to go.

We will be updating our posting each night as we pull into our hotels along the way, along with our posts we hope to put pictures and other funs things that we do and see along the way.
After we arrive in Sunderland, we will be posting approximately weekly to let you as our friends and family know how we are doing and what we are up to.

Here is our plan enroute to Sunderland, Mass and the adventures that await us out there:
-Friday, August 10-Drive from Orem, UT to North Platte, NE
-Saturday, August 11-Drive to Keokuk, IA
-Sunday, August 12-Relax and go to Church in Nauvoo, and see the Church history sites there
-Monday, August 13-Drive to Kirtland, OH where we will be able to visit some of the other Church history sites there
-Tuesday, August 14-Drive to Buffalo, NY, and go see Niagara Falls
-Wednesday, August 15-Drive to Springfield, MA
-Thursday, August 16-Drive to Sunderland, MA and move in.

Today I also got to go out and do some "research" with my dad. We went out to West Mountain above the Payson dump, and got to shoot his new Thompson sub-machine gun (even though it was only semi-auto), and I would have to say that it is the second funnest gun to shoot (next to the Browning .50 cal M2).

The other picture is of all our possessions piled up in boxes in our former dining room ready to be moved into the moving truck.