Goodbye to our Temple Family

Zion's Camp has gone from 11 missionaries to four. Zion's Camp is looking pretty bare. We have moved into the Taylor's home and it is so very nice. We are very blessed. It has a garage, two bedrooms, family room, dining room and living room and a basement with a laundry room and family room. In a really nice neighborhood with lots of families with young children. We are ready for visitors.

Friday after our last Temple Shift we all joined the Temple Presidency in the waiting room for our final goodbyes. We had a kneeling family prayer given by President Siebach. The missionaries then gave each member of the presidency a 14" marble statue of the first vision done by D. J. Bawden. The original is located in the Welcome Center at the Smith Farm. We have forged such wonderful friendships, it was hard to say goodbye. We and the Harmons are the lucky ones, we get to stay.

Pres. & Sis. Cederlof, Pres. & Sis. Siebach, Pres. & Sis. Jones

It was a week of lasts, last time to be Wednesday night coordinators, last FHE, etc. For our last FHE the Presidency took us out to dinner at Bellims, an Italian restaurant. They told three wonderful stories about relationships.

A picture of the Sacred Grove. The colors are changing quickly and we may get a freeze tonight. We are so blessed to have a wonderful family and friends who support and love us. We love you all and especially our Heavenly Father. We are so grateful for His plan of happiness which will bring us back to live with Him. Have a great week.

Last Week of the Six Month Mission

You are probably wondering what happened to us. Just a little slow this week. We have been moving into our new home and Sunday we had the Crookstons and Hutchinson over for dinner. It was such fun to have room for company and actually cook a dinner for someone

The Sacred Grove from the temple, the back trees

A small orchard next to the Palmyra Inn

The Taylors' home we are moving into. The tree is on the neighbors property.

The Sacred Grove

The Hill Cumorah, at the top

I took a few pictures of the colors last week and they are beautiful. Yesterday it was 82 and today it is 57 and raining. A lot of the leaves are falling fast.

Saturday night the Palmyra Historical Society sponsored a Cemetery walk at the local cemetery. What fun. We walked around the cemetery being introduced to about 10 local people who lived in Palmyra. One was Winston Churchill's father and mother, several military men, Lucy Harris, wife of Martin Harris and many others.

Sunday I started practicing with the Ward and Stake Choir. We are getting ready for Stake Conference Nov. 4. It's fun to sing with the choirs.

Last night was our last FHE with the missionaries. The Temple Presidency took us all out to an Italian Restaurant and shared some wonderful stories about relationships and talked about the relationships we have forged here in this special place. We are all changed by our experience here and our testimonies have grown and are stronger.

It is such fun to read your comments. Keep them coming. We love you and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Extending for a Year!!

We are so excited. We get to stay at the Palmyra Temple for another year. We submitted our papers for another temple mission. When President Siebach heard that we had put in for another temple mission he asked if we would like to stay here. We said, yes, yes, yes. He then wrote a letter to Brother Arnold and the extension was granted. We will now get to experience a New York winter.

This has been a busy week at the temple. W e had some of our tour groups come in on Monday and Wednesday. In fact on Wednesday night, our night to coordinate, we had our first own endowment, a young man from the Palmyra Ward who is leaving on a mission to Lubbock TX and a tour group.

Today, Sunday, we spoke in the Oneonta Branch which is down by Cooperstown. President Siebach let us take Friday off and we headed down early to see some of the sights in that area of NY. First we drove up into the Adirondak Mts. to see the fall colors. Some of the other missionaries had taken a train ride up into the mountains during shutdown. It was raining but very beautiful anyway.

We went from the mountains over to Cooperstown where we stayed with President and Sister Bruneau. They moved here about five years ago from NH and started an apple orchard. They have planted over 9,000 trees and at the present have nine different varieties that are producing. He took us out and we picked a box full to bring back to the temple.

On Saturdays they go the Cooperstown market. Joan and her mother, Dorothy, made jams, applesauce, apple turnovers, apple twists, apple cinnamon rolls and everything else they can think of. They had a great day and sold most of their apples and baked goods.

After helping getting things set up we set out to the see the sights of Cooperstown, the baseball hall of fame. Of course we enjoyed it very much.

Paul with the "Babe"

We spent a whole afternoon in the museum and then on Saturday watched a little baseball at the Doubleday Field. We also went over and enjoyed the Fenimore Art Museum. That's the Fenimore Cooper Art museum, author of "The Last of the Mohican's. Here's Paul enjoying the art museum.

On our way home today we stopped off at Niniva, NY which is where Joseph and Emma were married, and then on down the street we stopped at the Josiah Stoal home where Joseph and Emma lived for a short time. We also drove by where Joseph Knight had his home. As we were driving by Waterloo we decided to stop at the Whitmer Farm again. Elder Taylor from Arizona took us on the tour. Sister Pinegar encouraged us to all revisit the sites before we left. Lucky us, we get to go lots more times.

It's turned off cool here so we have had to pull out our sweaters. We are expecting a great week.

October Week 2

Thursday we decided to stay around and start to get things ready to move out of Zion's Camp. We are washing down the trailer getting it ready for winter.

This is the Wildey Family. They are in the Palmyra Ward. They are on their way to the temple and Autumn gets to stay with me for the evening. She is such a sweetheart. They are expecting their second child, a boy, in November. Heather is 2nd Counselor in the RS. This is as close as I get to grandchildren. I offered to baby sit when I first got here and Heather is the only one who took me up on it. What a blessing it has been for us.

Saturday the temple was closed for General Conference. It was shown here at 12 noon, 4 pm and the Priesthood session was at 8 pm. We were invited to President and Sister Siebach's home on Saturday and enjoyed it with them and the Warrs, another missionary couple. That evening the Sisters had a girls night out during the Priesthood session and we all went to dinner at the Great Wall. (Chinese food) We decided we should have been having more of these outings.

Sunday morning we took a walk up the Hill Cumorah through the trees and came out on top by the corn field. We decided we had never walked the length of the Hill so off we started. When we reached the edge of the property we went down the back side and all the way back to Zion's Camp. It was wonderful morning. We then had to hurry and get ready for 12 o'clock session of conference which we watched at the Stake Center. For the afternoon session we drove out to Fayette, the Peter Whitmere Farm. In 1980 President Kimball broadcast the 1st satellite broadcast from here and dedicated the visitor center and the Whitmere home.

We are so blessed to belong to this marvelous Church, restored to the earth again. Our Heavenly Father loves us so very much that he sent His son to show us the way. How blessed we are to have living prophets on the earth today and it was wonderful to be taught by them this past weekend.

Tonight for FHE we had a special treat. Elder and Sister Ed Pinegar, who are site missionaries here in Palmyra taught us about the Book of Mormon. His background is that he was a dentist and taught seminary every morning for a number of years and then went to teaching Book of Mormon at BYU fultime. He also was President of the MTC. Just a few one liners we learned from him tonight.

The Book of Mormon will bless and save your soul

• David O. McKay said grow, self mastery, spiritual life


• All growth begins by remembering the tender mercies of God
  The scriptures are to be lived
• Read together with your spouse every night 5 pages, if so you can read it 3 times each year
• The spirit and the word are inseparable
• Faith--you hear the word; moves us to repent
• Prayer is the most vital link to God Laman and Lemuel murmured because they did not ask
• 1 Ne 15 :24 "it was the word of God and whoso would hearken unto the word of God and would hold fast unto it neither could temptations or the adversary overpower them" If you know this will you have scripture time?
• Faith is to accept and repentance is to live it
• Sacrifice your very souls; give your will over to God's will

We saw a doe and fawn on the way from from Fayette.

Have a great the get reading and praying.

October Week 1

I'm going to start backwards since that's how I brought the pictures in this week. Sunday we went to the Palmyra Ward and then picked up the Deckers and attended the Singles Ward in Rochester with them. After arriving home the four of us walked through the grove again to see if we could remember what we learned last week. It was a wonderful day.

On P-Day we visited the Strong Children's Museum in Rochester. They have a wonderful butterfly house with over 300 butterflies. They are everywhere, you have to watch where you walk and they land on you often.

This is a beautiful moth.

For FHE this week the Jones did a dutch oven cooking class and dinner. It was such fun and so delicious.

President and Sister Jones live in West Valley, UT and to help his children earn money for their missionaries they had a dutch oven cooking business in the SLC valley. We learned some great tips and enjoyed a delicious dinner.

The colors continue to change. This is a tree by our trailer at Zion's Camp.

This is the Grove as seen from the temple.

This is the Hill Cumorah at the top, the leaves are dropping quickly. Have a great week and enjoy every day.