Day 14 - Palmyra

We started and ended this day at the Hill Cumorah. (Well, we really started and ended it in our tent, but you know what I mean.) We took the official tour at the visitor's center and then headed for the Smith farm and Sacred Grove. We enjoyed the tour of the log home and the newer frame house. We then wandered the paths of the Grove. I was there forty years ago and remembered a single path to a single end point, but now there are many paths and benches and no particular end point. This is better. We wandered to a bench where no one was and sat and talked for a few minutes. It is a special place.

After lunch at some picnic tables by the visitor's center, we went to the Palmyra Temple and walked around it. It is a beautiful small temple set on the original Smith 100 acres. From there we drove to see the Peter Whitmer farm. We enjoyed that tour and farm house (although we were getting somewhat tired of missionaries pushing referral cards everywhere we went.)

From there it was back to Palmyra for a tour of the print shop where the first edition of the Book of Mormon was printed. We were all interested in the paintings on the walls there and the press and binding operations. Dinner followed at our campground with plenty of food and time to run and play. There was a rousing game of Red Rover.

At 8pm we headed over to the Hill Cumorah again. Tresa found good seats in the front center. While we waited for the dress rehearsal to start, we enjoyed watching a run-through of the Lamanites overrunning Mormon and Moroni. Later we met Mormon as the cast mingled with those of us watching before it started. Sara asked Mormon how to tell which was Mormon and which was Moroni. He explained that Moroni is skinny and Mormon, not so much. Later, as they appeared in the production together, Sara exclaimed: "Moroni really is skinny!" We had been warned that the production might be stopped and fixed as this was the dress rehearsal, but that didn't happen. A whole row of Directors sat right behind us and we enjoyed listening to them as the production proceeded as some things worked (for the first time) and others didn't work at all. (At one point Abinadi was testifying and the spotlight was brightly lighting the stage 20 feet away!) The production was great (and complete), the crowd small and we got to bed timely.

We had barely gotten in bed, when the skies let loose with rain. It rained hard (with great thunder and lightening at the beginning) for more than an hour. Some water got on our bags and clothes, but it was minimal and mostly the rain was enjoyable.

It was a glorious day. The kids, mostly, paid attention and as I talked to them about what we were seeing and hearing, they seemed to be getting it. As for me, this is also good for me. It is good to be in these places, pondering what I know and feel and believe.