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.