Palmyra has special meaning to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was in Palmyra that the First Vision took place. Other reasons why Palmyra is special: the first copies of the Book of Mormon were published here, it was at the Hill Cumorah that Joseph Smith received the plates, there is a Temple there, and Palmyra is close to the Peter Whitmer home where the church was officially organized.
Last weekend, Nathan and I headed up to Palmyra for a day and a half anniversary date. It was great! Our wonderful neighbors watched Hannah for us so we could enjoy a short weekend together.
Friday afternoon, after Hannah went down for a nap we drove up to NY. The drive was gorgeous because it was green everywhere! We checked into our hotel, and then went over to the Temple. The Palmyra temple is really neat. All of the windows are stained glassed to depict the sacred grove (where the first vision took place). **FYI, since our camera is out of commission, the temple photos below are from ldschurchtemples.com**
However, there is one window in the temple that you can see through. In fact, it is the only window in the history of the church's temples that is a two way window. It's called the "Hinckley window."
Apparently President Hinckley wanted a clear window in the reception area so that people could look out of the temple and see the sacred grove. Pretty cool, huh? President Hinckley thought of everything!
The next day, we ate breakfast and then headed out to see some of the other church history sites. We stopped at the Hill Cumorah visitors center to get a map of the sites, and we ended up running into one of Nathan's former professors. Small world.
After visiting with Nathan's former professor, we took a small trek up to the top of the Hill Cumorah to look at the monument the church has built.
Here is the view from the top of the hill looking out. This is where the Hill Cumorah Pageant takes place each year. Isn't it gorgeous? Look how green it is! This is one plus of living on the east coast.
Of course, there was no monument on the Hill Cumorah when Joseph Smith received the plates. It looked more like this back in the 1820s:
We noticed that the monument has a small creature hanging out. Check out this little frog on Angel Moroni's arm.
After the visiting the Hill Cumorah, we headed over to the Smith family farm so that we could go walk around in the Sacred Grove. There was almost nobody there so we pretty much had the entire grove all to ourselves. It was pretty awesome. We sat down on a bench, enjoyed the peace and quiet there, and read the account of the first vision in the scriptures.
When we were done with the sacred grove we got back into the car, drove over to the site where the Book of Mormon was published, but we didn't have anytime to stop and do the tour. That will have to be another time. It was approaching lunch time so we actually headed back up to the top of the Hill Cumorah, busted lunch out of the cooler, and ate while enjoying the view. It was pretty incredible.
When we finished lunch we decided that it was time to head home. Hannah was excited to see us, but sad to leave the neighbors house. She had a lot of fun playing with Claire and Harrison.
Palmyra temple picture courtesy of ldschurchtemples.com
Stained glass windows picture courtesy of ldschurchtemples.com
Hinckley window picture courtesy of ldschurchtemples.com
Sacred grove view from temple picture courtesy of ldschurchtemple.com
6 comments:
I certainly with Dad and I could have been with you on your trip! How wonderful to be able to do that over a short period of time!
LaMar said:
"You are so fortunate for this experience. So blessed. Rozzie and I went up in 1970 and it rained, I mean it really rained hard. We missed hiking around the sacred grove, the hill Cumorah, everything except part of the pageant. But we were close to the sacred grove and felt the spirit just knowing that God the Father and our Savior were there just feet away in 1820. I'm sure you felt it too. We listened to the First Vision in Swahili last Sunday, and didn't understand a thing---but we felt the spirit, and we could see it in the eyes of these amazing people. Imagine that. The spirit really does the teaching. I'm so happy for both you.
I Love you, Dad."
Jennifer said:
"Hi Rachel. What a neat trip!! I visited the sacred grove when I was 8 years old and felt a witness of the first vision. One of my early spiritual memories."
So awesome! I would love to go there one of these days!
We were just talking about temples at our Fireside on Sunday and happened to talk about the Palmyra temple having a window looking out to the sacred grove! How fun to go there!!
I have never been to Palmyra, and this totally makes me want to go! Too bad we just moved west again. I loved being so near Nauvoo when we were in Iowa, and that's so neat that now you're close to some more church history sites. It looks so beautiful out there.
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