Sunday we visited the Fredonia Branch in Fredonia NY and presented the "Come to the Palmyra Temple and Claim Your Temple Blessings". It is a wonderful Branch and they treated us so well. We did our presentation during the 3rd hour joint meeting. Afterwards we were invited to the home of The Burkes where we had lunch and did a fireside for the youth and all those who were there.

Saturday we left for Fredonia and stopped at the Gonandagan Dance and Music Festival. We have visited here before. They have constructed a longhouse from the Seneca Indians who lived here in the 1700's.

Thursday we had a big rainstorm. Actually it has rained all week. Zion's Camp looks really great from all the rain. The yellow spots from all the tents have already greened up and most of the missionaries have moved back in. We said goodbye to the Krebs, work crew directors, from Kentucky. They took care of the 26 young men who came to construct the stage etc. for pageant.

We stopped by the Ontario County Fair Friday night after the temple. They had fireworks and everything else was just about shut down by the time we got there. They had rain all week so I don't think it was too pleasant.

For FHE this week we invited Brother and Sister Graham from the Palmyra Ward to speak to us about the reconstruction of the Smith Log Home. He was a missionary in charge of the construction. He gave each couple a nail out of the floor of the Grandon Printing Office. While he told us about the construction of the home the Westons, site directors, took us on a tour of the inside of the log home. It was a great evening.

Elder & Sister Weston, site directors.

It came and went so quickly!!

Pageant has come and gone. What a glorious week. Paul and I served in the temple on all the shifts and had such a great week. We were tired come Saturday night but we knew we had lots of time after it was all over.

We were glad we were there on Tuesday night because Peter and Gail Lassen and family came in to do baptisms. It is always fun to see people from home. Marcy was one of my YW in Camarillo 1st Ward.

Brother & Sister Bob Edwards were here on Friday. We saw them in the temple in the afternoon and met them at pageant that evening. It was nice to have someone save us a seat.

We attended pageant four times.

Gene, LaRay, and Corinna Figeroa are also here visiting. We took a nice walk around the temple this evening. We had dinner at Mark Halligan's. LaRae made a great Mexican dinner for us. Mark is friend of Gene's from years ago in the service.

Our Walk brought us out by the Smith farm. You have to climb the fence to get out. It started to rain just as we finished our walk.

Sunday was our last Sacrament meeting choir presentation of Cumorah's Hill. It was such a pleasure to be a part of it. Mary Harris, our director, and Geraldine Buck, our accompanist, did a great job and helped us to bear our testimonies thru music. Sis. Buck is moving back to Idaho Falls and she will be greatly missed here in Palmyra Ward.

Wednesday the Bruneaus came and spent the night with us. They are from Oneonta and have an apple orchard. We have spoken in their Branch several times.

Have a great week. I know we will. Get yourself to the temple. The Twin Falls temple is beautiful. Kimberly and Gary got to be ushers during the open house.

Our good friends, George and Kenlyn Christnot received their mission call to Richmond,VA. We are so happy for them.

The Hill is ready for Pageant which began on Friday. The missionaries went Thursday evening for the dress rehearsal. There were some changes to the program from last year. All very wonderful.

We went over early Thursday morning to reserve a few seats for the performance. Several of our missionaries had family visiting so that is why we have so many.

Elder Crookston joined us to help us get the seats marked.

This is Elder Lewis with President Clark, President of the Palmyra Stake.

This is the Salimbene Family, also part of our Palmyra Ward.

We were blessed to have a few visitors this week. Always wonderful to see friends and family from home. This is Dorothy Giles, from the Los Angeles Temple, and her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. They were only with us for a night. They have been on the road since June 28th and have been across the country seeing all the sites. They come to us from Washington, DC and had to be home by Sunday.

We came over to the dress rehearsal from the temple and brought the Perkins with us. These two girls are in the pageant from Iowa and Michigan.

We also had the Mike and Lucile Corfields from the Jordan River Temple stay with us for the week. They are good friends with the Crookstons and served with them in the Jordan River Temple. They flew back this afternoon. We enjoyed having them with us even though we did not get to see them much.

It has been a wonderful few days in the temple. Friday and Saturday we completed over 2000 ordinances each day. Saturday we were in the temple from 7 am to 7 pm and were in the baptistry all day. It is great to work with these youth and their leaders. We had lots of families come in with their children.

We will be serving on all the shifts next week during pageant. We have many local ordinance workers who are in pageant or are assigned other responsibilities and so each shift can use extra workers.

Today in Sacrament meeting the choir presented "From Cumorah's Hill". This is always a big sacrament meeting with over 1200 people. It is thrilling to be a part of it. We have worked with some incredible people, Mary Harris our director and Geraldine Buck and Linda Ingold as our accompanists. We have one more performance next Sunday. Have a great week.

Formation of the Hill Cumorah Pageant

Last Monday for FHE we had a wonderful presentation from President & Sister Cederlof, 1st Counselor in the Palmyra Temple. They served in the Nauvoo Temple for six months and then were called to open and serve in the Manhattan New York Temple for eighteen months.

Thursday P-Day about 11 couples joined The Simons, from Las Vegas, to celebrate Carol's birthday. We went to the Belhurst Castle on the Seneca Lake. We were seated in the solarium. It was raining on and off all day but very beautiful.

A view of the outside of Belhurst Castle

On the 4th of July we were in the temple. We had an own endowment and a few patrons. At 2:30 we had 26 young men from the pageant work crew come in to do baptisms. They are wonderful young men. They put up all the staging for the pageant and work really hard throughout the pageant. Bro. & Sis. Krebs brought them in. We rented their trailer last summer. After leaving the temple we went to the fair grounds for a fried chicken picnic with the temple missionaries. After dinner we went over to the Hill to watch the casting for the pageant.

First stage of building the stage

Near completion, fences are up and parking lot is ready.

Sister Simons, Linda Pentycofe (who is a pageant participant and from Palmyra) and Paul watching casting

They are picking the girls for the dancing scenes in the background. The boys are just waiting for their turn.

They put all the women in an area who wanted to be in the dance scenes. Taught them a few steps and then picked 120. The rest will be in other scenes. Then they picked a few speaking parts from a group of older women. When they finished that they called all the men and boys. They finished up Saturday morning and began practicing. It is just incredible what they are able to do in such a short time. We understand there are about 700 participants.

Saturday after choir practice at 7:30 am, temple 12:30-5:00pm we drove to Auburn with the Perkins, from St. George, and many of the other temple missionaries to see the play Les Miserables. It was really good and we had a great time. It was performed at the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse on the Cayuga Lake. Here I am with the Clawsons and Simons behind the monument honoring the women who have served our country.

Here we are waiting for our tickets. It's a beautiful location and the weather was delightful.

Had a great Sacrament meeting and SS and RS meeting. We had choir afterwards until 2 pm. We are preparing for the two Sundays of pageant. The Palmyra Ward performs some songs from Cumorah's Hill. We were finally able to have Karl and Ramona Jones, Elizabethe Walton, and the Crookstons to Sunday dinner. Ramona brought us a homemade lemon pie. It was all delicious. We have made such wonderful friends here in Palmyra.

Our thought for the week from Pres. Jones SS lesson. "When what we can learn in our heads can be felt in our hearts can be accomplished with our hands." We love you, be obedient and faithful.