We started today with a walk through the Sacred Grove. What a wonderful thing to do on the day of General Conference. I remember last April we we did it also and we saw our first purple flowers blooming. Today many of the trees are bare of leaves and fall is definitely in the air. We walked out from the back of the log home where Joseph would have come from.

Paul enjoying a moment of contemplation and an opportunity for the spirit to spread over us.

Just a beautiful spot in the grove.

We watched conference at the Stake Center Saturday and Sunday. Paul went over and helped Bro. Fuqua set up for the broadcast and set up the Spanish videos and was basically in charge for all the session. Saturday evening the Brothers had a chili dinner before the Priesthood session. Sister Crookston, Sister Gehrig, and Sister Rotkowski came over and we watched the new Emma movie. We enjoyed it very much but would love to see it on a better screen.

Thursday was a wonderful day. Laura and Kim Bergeson along with their daughter Amy, her husband Matt and their three children, Kylee, Ben and Summer came to Palmyra to see the sites. We met them at the Whitmer Farm and tagged along with them all day. What fun.

Sister Bennet took us on the tour at the farm and got all our pictures. Laura and Kim are from Camarillo and our children grew up together in Camarillo 1st Ward. Amy was one of my YW girls and she is a wonderful mother and wife. She married a nephew of Neil and Sharon Decker who were missionaries with us last summer. What a small world. Amy and Matt live in Eagle Mountain and left two little ones at home.

Here we are at the Apostle tree in the Sacred Grove

We took a walk around the temple and had to tell them all about the stain glass windows, 27 in groups of three. Two special trees, one in the celestial room (the tree of life) and the other in the front door (the tree of knowledge). There are 64,000 cut leaves in the windows.

On Monday afternoon the missionaries took a tour of Brother and Sister Cahoon's apple and cherry processing plant. It it out in Wolcott and took us about 50 minutes to get there. It is on the shores of Lake Ontario, one of the best apple producing areas in the world. It is a family business and Jolene Green, their daughter is standing there with him and Paul. We serve in the office with Jolene.

We are waiting for the Perkins and Duggers to arrive before beginning the tour.

Here we are learning about the operation and we have dawned our hats to keep unwanted things out of the apples.

Paul and Bro. Archibald

They are processing apple for Comstock. It's an amazing business. Bro. & Sister Cahoon are our local temple worker coordinators on Friday night. We love them. They are the best.

We went back to the Visitors Center at the Hill Cumorah for FHE with the site missionaries. Bro. Cal Stevens was out visiting from SL and spoke to us. He wove the stories of several early pioneers showing us that God's hand is in this great work and blessed we are to be a part of it. He also said "I have seen a great deal of this world and so has Elder Weston, (site director) and there isn't anything we have seen out there that we want more than eternal life. I'm with them, lets keep the commandments so we can return to live with Heavenly Father again.

I hope you saw all of conference. We are so blessed to have living prophets among us. Our prayer is that we will listen and follow their direction.