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.