Youth Conference

Marc & I had the opportunity to travel as chaperons during our stake's Youth Conference. We boarded charter buses early Thursday morning and drove first to Kirtland, Ohio. We did a quick tour through the historical buildings like the Newell K Whitney Store, the Saw Mill, the first Kirtland School house, etc. Then it was back on the buses where we drove to New York & stayed just outside of Palmyra at Hobart, Smith & Williams College. That evening we had a dance which was a lot of fun and Hot!! There were no windows in the barn so it was stuffy and cramped with all of the kids and adults in there.


Early Friday morning we drove to the David Whitmer farm. It was here that Joseph Smith finished translating the Small Plates and where the Church was officially organized. The table you see by the fireplace is the original Whitmer table, how cool is that?


Next, we drove to Palmyra and first stopped at the Smith Farm. This was one of my favorite places on the whole trip. I love the statue in the Visitor's Center depicting the "First Vision" of Joseph Smith when he was 14 years old. We got to go through the small log cabin of the Smith family where the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph telling him about the Gold Plates and we were lucky to have actors from another stake depicting different characters at all of the sites we went to that day. Our favorite was "Sephronia Smith" who was Joseph's older sister.

Next, we visited the Hill Cumorah, where Joseph retrieved the gold plates, which were translated into the Book of Mormon. While we were at the Visitors Center there, we got to see the new church movie, "Joseph Smith." It was AMAZING! I loved it! Very well done, it depicted the life of Joseph Smith and was absolutely tear jerking as you watched the trials and afflictions he went through in restoring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Earth. Afterwards we went through the Grandin Printing Press which is the original building that the Book of Mormon was first published in 1832. What a miracle it was to bring forth this book!


After dinner, the entire group of 150+ kids walked past the temple, through the Smith Farm and into the Sacred Grove silently. Marc and I were at the front of the group and it sounded like this huge army marching through the gravel, it was awesome. What an experience it is to enter the Sacred Grove where God & Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith. The spirit that is there and the sacredness of that land is absolutely overwhelming. It was a very special evening, the kids got to bear their testimonies then we loaded the buses and drove back to the college.


Saturday morning we drove back to Kirtland and went to the temple there. Afterwards we had lunch and toured the John Johnson Farm. This is were Joseph was drug from his home, severely beaten, then tared and feathered. It was an emotional experience having seen the movie then being in the room that it happened in. It was a LONG, Fantastic weekend. We missed our kids who were at home with their grandparents, but got to spend the time with our amazing youth. Now if we can just recover from the sleep deprivation of being in the dorms with a bunch of teenagers we'll be great!