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.

Monday evening Bishop and Nancy Hales arrived in Palmyra via South Carolina where they had attended the baptism of a granddaughter. We felt so privileged to have them come see us. We appreciate their love and support. Tuesday morning we took a walk through the sacred grove. We could not believe how much the grove has grown in just a couple of weeks. It has become so dense. It has such a peaceful and quiet atmosphere.

From here we drove to the Whitmer Farm where the church was organized. We stopped and had lunch at "The Great Wall" and then on to the Grandan printing Bldg.

The translation of the Book of Mormon was completed here in the upstairs of this home. Sister Whitmer was privileged to be visited by Moroni and he showed her the plates. She worked very hard and had many people in and out of her home.

Tuesday evening they joined us at the temple.

Wednesday morning we walked the Hill Cumorah and visited the visitors center. We had a wonderful visit with them and so appreciate their coming to visit.

By Thursday all the missionaries had moved out of Zion's Camp getting ready for the pageant people. We took a fun ride with the Pestanas over to Canandaigua in their bus. It is quite a place. We parked at the lake and had lunch and then back to the Hill.

These pictures are for the kids. A field full of geese, many are babies and haven't learned to fly yet.

This is an alpaca we saw in a field. He stood up nice and tall so I could get a good picture of him.

We received an assignment from Pres. Sieback to visit Erie, PA and present "Come to the Temple and Claim Your Blessings". The presidency have been trying to get out to the 72 units in the temple district but with three it takes a long time. He decided to send us all out and see if we could complete the task by August. We drove down with the Crookstons who were also speaking to the Erie 2nd Ward. We were a stones throw from Kirtland and President said we could go over. The Crookstons had never been to the Johnson Farm or the Morley Farm. We said that was like going to Palmyra and missing the sacred grove.

This is the rock quarry where they got the sandstone for the temple.

We had a tour of the Kirtland Temple. The sacrifice was truly great and here stands the remembrance of all they did.

This is the front porch at the Johnson Home. Joseph would have stood out here and preached every Sunday. Sixteen sections of the D & C were revealed in this home. The Lord had placed people where He needed them. The Johnsons were such a family.

One of the rooms where the revelation was given.

The Erie Ward is about 3 hours from the temple and yet they are devoted to the temple and are a temple going Ward. There were many there we had seen in the temple. Their youth come often. We bear testimony of this great work and encourage all of you to attend the temple as often as possible. Come and claim your blessings.

This has been a busy week. Monday night we had a salmon fish fry. It was delicious. The Archibalds go to Alaska every other summer for four months and fish. They have a daughter in Utica and she had lots of salmon. She sent it up for us. We had a wonderful meal together.

On Thursday we spent the day with the Pestanas. They are from Provo via Los Angeles. They served as baptistry directors for two years in LA. Paul got to know them down there. We went to Buffalo for the day. First we visited the Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House Complex .

He is known for his prairie homes. It was built in 1905. Everyone thing is horizontal and organic. All the colors are earth tones. Quite innovative for his time.

We had lunch at the Original Buffalo Wings restaurant in Buffalo. They were very good.

We ended up by visiting the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum. We also got to ride a carrousel made in 1905.

Saturday we left Palmyra about 11 and drove to Hornell, NY to speak at the Hornell Branch on Sunday. It was a beautiful ride down next to Canandaigua Lake. Beautiful rolling hills and green everywhere. We spent the evening in our motel room preparing for our Sacrament meeting talks and the 3rd hour Priesthood/RS meeting.

These are some of the members of the Hornell Branch. They were so wonderful to us and many of them we have served at the temple. Sister Geer, in the turquoise dress, is coming to the temple next month. The youth have also come to the temple for baptistry. Sister Bates, 2nd from the right, bottom row, is getting baptized on the 6th of July.

We got back in time for Paul to go to Stake Priesthood meeting. A couple of good thoughts. Priesthood service is like a tennis game--he who serves best usually wins. Devote our time to building up the kingdom. All of us can do what we can do. Elder Pitts--serve Him with our whole soul. Do the best you can. The Holy Spirit will guide you and direct you. The kingdom is directed by the Savior Jesus Christ.