Today, Sunday, we travelled to the Hamilton Branch to present the "Come to the Temple and Claim Your Eternal Blessings" during their joint RS and Priesthood meeting. A wonderful Branch, very friendly and several people we recognize from the temple. They are about 2 hours from Palmyra and south east of Syracuse.

Colage University is in Hamilton and it is a beautiful campus. The drive going up to the university is lined with huge oak trees.

Saturday it was Pirate Canal days in Palmyra. We ran into Bro and Sis Wildly who were dressed for the occasion. During the early Erie Canal days pirates would be found along the canal.

We also met Bonnie Hayes and her husband down at the historical museums. She has pulled the four historical museums in Palmyra together and does a wonderful job.

Tony Collie led the kazoo band and Susan drove the van. There were several members of the ward who were also in it. Sarah Baker was there. She was in Paul's seminary class.

Thursday Paul went to Amsden's to mow the back field. I stopped by the barns to see the new pigmee goats. They were two days old and so cute. They jump all over the place.

This is Dee Amsden with a goat that is a month old. They also have lammas.

For FHE this week President Siebach gave us his "Come Unto Christ and Shepherding" & "Laban's Sword" lesson. He had a staff and crook made for each of us. They were made by the Amish and are hickory. They will be a treasure.

He has his own Laban's sword. It's pretty heavy and we wonder how they were able to fight with these swords.

Our special treat this week was tonight we decided to climb the Hill Cumorah and when we got to the top there was David, Jennie Hawks and their granddaughter. They are my cousins from Ogden, Utah. What a surprise for both of us. They are out on a temple trip. This is their 40th anniversary this year and they wanted to go to 40 temples. They also have their papers submitted for a mission and are waiting to hear where they will go. We look forward to seeing them in the temple tomorrow morning.

Tonight we drove over to Zion's Camp and everyone was meeting to decide what to do over shutdown. There are many plans but nothing definite yet.

Sunday we attended Church in Palmyra, did our home teaching and actually saw three of our families. Later that afternoon we invited the FM missionaries for dinner. We have the Deckers on the left, they are from Apple Valley; The Judys from Idaho Falls, and the Youngs from West Jordan. The Youngs do a lot of wood work and have given us a beautiful clock wood cutting of the first vision and a beautiful pen set made from walnut from the Hill Cumorah. We have all been here over the last 15 months.

A relaxing Sunday afternoon with Elder Young on the front porch.

Sister Rogerson has been a site missionary and is going home this Wednesday. She is a wonderful missionary and we have had her to dinner several times and been on many of her site tours. She is returning to BYU for graduate studies. She lives in Sandy, UT.

Thursday we had a special treat. Brother & Sister Hughes, who live in Ithica home of Cornell University, invited the Saturday morning missionaries to their home for dinner. They were our Saturday morning shift coordinators for the last 15 months.

The Pestanas, Gehrigs, Crookstons, Archibalds Simons and us.

We had a great trip down with the Pestanas and stopped at McKenzie-Child factory and home. The home was purchased in 1980's and decorated it with their ceramic and furniture. It was a farmhouse built in the late 1800's and was a dairy farm. It is decorated so lovely. They wouldn't let us take any pictures inside the house . It is all hand made and painted and very expensive.

This view overlooks the Cayuga Lake

Below is a piece of the work they sell. They make pottery, dishes, furniture, and draperies.

After dinner at the Hughes they took us through campus and to some of the beautiful waterfalls and gorges they have around the lake and in Ithica. It's rather hilly but very beautiful place.

This is the gorge several of us walked down. It is as beautiful as Watkins Glen. The layers of slate are incredible. Makes you want to study geology. (Tyler I got you a piece of slate).

This is an old mill which is at the mouth of the gorge.

We have been getting a lot of our family files completed this week. We have sent some home for the kids to do and they are doing a great job on getting them done. Palmyra should be changing to the new system by the end of August.

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.