We are quickly getting settled into our mission. Last week we finally moved out of our AirBnB into our new "home". At our permanent apartment we were able to host our first social with other temple missionaries. In the little over two weeks that we have been here, we have become members of the Palmyra Community Center for our exercise needs, signed up for our E-ZPass to drive on toll roads, and become members of Historic Palmyra, Inc. to visit the local museums. Most importantly, we have served on many different temple shifts, getting to know how to perform our responsibilities in the temple. The temple leadership has even trusted us enough to allow Debbie and I to lead an endowment session together. We are home!
We have experienced a few nice weather days, some snow, and a lot of rain. This eliminated our "totality view" of the solar eclipse although we still enjoyed the complete darkness and cold that accompanied the eclipse. We visited the Peter Whitmer Farm on April 6, 2024, the 194th anniversary of the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have been back to once again experience the spring environment in the Sacred Grove. We loved General Conference a little later in the day in the Eastern Time Zone. We enjoy our special missionary friends, wonderful ordinance workers, a loving temple presidency and amazing patrons from all over the world.
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| A photo of the Palmyra Temple taken from the Joseph Smith Farm at sunset the night before the solar eclipse. Three days later, Debbie and I were able to move into our new "home". |
Living Accommodations, in the Methodist Church and parsonage:
While we were awaiting our new "home", we were blessed to stay in an AirBnB, located in the former Methodist Church on Church Street in Palmyra, New York. We have now moved into our new apartment, which is part of the Parsonage of that same Methodist Church. We have loved this situation and I want to make it a clear for any who have not been to Palmyra before. The following comes from the Walking Tour presented by Historic Palmyra:
"Four Churches at Canandaigua St. and Main St. They have been featured by Ripley's Believe It Or Not as the only main village intersection in America with a church on each corner, the churches in order of construction are Western Presbyterian (1832), First United Methodist (1867), First Baptist (1870), and Zion Episcopal (1873)."
The following brochure from the Smith Farm Welcome Center shows a summary map of the area today, with reference to other Church Historic Sites:
We just got back from a visit to the Historic Palmyra museum. There we saw a map of Palmyra from 1871 and a photo of a similar period. Both are included to see the historic focus of these four churches:
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| My photo from the 1871 map of Palmyra in the Museum |
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| A close up of the map, showing the four Churches and the Parsonage behind the Methodist Church, our new home |
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| This is a photo of a photo from that time period. You can see the four churches and the white parsonage behind the Methodist Church at the top of the photo |
A few years ago the Methodist Church was closed and the building was sold to a member of our Church. He turned the rear part of the Church into AirBnB apartments. He also turned the parsonage into a duplex, which currently houses two missionary couples, including the Rueckerts.
The following are a few of the photos of our AirBnB apartment where we stayed for 10 days. It was very nice, but lacked laundry facilities and a stove to cook with. However, we were able to enjoy microwave food and paper plates throughout our stay.
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| Our spacious bedroom |
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| Our unique desk, which was made out of a piano. If we bumped any of the strings, we heard music. |
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| This is where we enjoyed watching General Conference, a very nice setting. |
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| This was a shared kitchen and eating space. There was a microwave available on the other side of the kitchen. Breakfast foods were stocked in the kitchen, including in the refrigerator and freezer |
There were four AirBnB rooms in the Church with two bathrooms to share. During our stay, there were others in two of the bedrooms for only 3 nights, so we had plenty of privacy.
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| The view of the parsonage house, our next home, from our AirBnB window. We are now living in the rear portion (left in this photo) of this house. |
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| The chapel of the Church is rented out to another denomination that use it every Sunday night between 4:00 and 9:00 pm |
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| This is the "sanctuary" leading to the chapel. We passed by it everyday as we went to our room. |
We moved into our AirBnB on March 31, 2024. Another missionary couple left the parsonage on April 6. The landlord did a wonderful job cleaning and preparing it for our moving in Wednesday, April 10. The following photos are of our new "home".
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| Our new living room |
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| Our new kitchen |
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| Our "mud room" as we enter into the apartment. It will also serve as our computer room. |
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| We then go up these old pioneer style stairs to get to our bedroom, bathroom and laundry |
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| A high capacity laundry room at the top of the stairs |
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| Our very comfortable bedroom with our luggage as we moved in |
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| We can't put nails into the wall, so we put our "HOME is wherever I'm with YOU" on the window sill. This is the same wall hanging that we bought for and took with us on our first mission. It is still true! |
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| Our first home cooked meal, prepared by Sister Rueckert, after we went to the store and while I was moving our belongings over from the AirBnB next door. |
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| Photo of our AirBnB (upper level) taken from our living room window. |
The Solar Eclipse:
Before we left for our mission we became aware that Palmyra was in the range of "Totality" for the April 8, 2024 Solar Eclipse. We bought special shirts to commemorate this experience. The week previous we experienced continual rain. On Saturday, April 6, the sun came out and we had beautiful weather until the morning of April 8. In that morning, the skies were still mostly clear, but the clouds were coming in.
I had contemplated seeing the eclipse near the Palmyra Temple. Several others had the same idea. When we arrived at the temple, we met a couple who had traveled four hours from Williamsport, Pennsylvania to film the eclipse with the Palmyra Temple. He had been planning this for over a year. He arrived early that morning at 6:00 am to establish his tripod in the perfect position so that he could film the moment of "totality" right near the Angel Moroni on the temple. He had prepared every thing to get it just right. We spent some time talking to this brother and his wife and decided to get a copy of his photo, which would be much better than anything that we could do.
As the time approached, the cloud cover increased. We looked for a few blue spots in the sky which opened and then closed again. Debbie and this man's wife noticed a small glimpse of a partial eclipse as the clouds opened slightly for just a few seconds. In the end, the eclipse was hidden behind the clouds. We did experience the total darkness as the moon passed directly in front of the sun, which was an amazing experience all by itself. We felt worse for this couple who had waited and prepared so long.
Serving in the Palmyra Temple:
We receive a monthly calendar of shifts to serve in the temple. Generally, we are serving four or five shifts a week. Some are in the morning, others are in the evening. Last Saturday we served on an afternoon shift. Each shift has a consistent shift coordinator and 10 to 15 ordinance workers for each gender while the temple presidency and missionaries rotate. Thus, we are able to meet many different shift coordinators and workers. We also get a different assignment each day that we show up. We serve on endowment sessions, in the baptistry, performing initiatory ordinances, working at the recommend desk and other assignments. At the end of each shift, most workers have a small cleaning assignment. It gives us quite a bit of variety.
We are also assigned to come and spend about an hour cleaning the temple on a Wednesday or Friday morning twice a month. In addition we are blessed to attend the temple as patrons as often as we are able. When we put all of this together, we are in the temple at least 5 days a week.
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| In our white scrubs on our first day cleaning in the temple |
Besides being constantly in the House of the Lord, we have really enjoyed getting to know the other temple workers. They have been incredibly open and friendly. Because our pool of workers is relatively small, we are getting to know many of them on a more personal basis.
In addition, we see patrons from all over the temple district and visitors from the U.S. and other countries of the world. For example, last week I helped a family from Japan in the baptistry. The same day, the father came through the initiatory where I was serving and the next day he was on an endowment session where I served. This makes our service even more personal.
Last week, I served in the baptistry several times. I have spent most of my time there helping with the confirmations. There I meet each one of the individuals who come. Last week, we had a group of young adults from a branch near Cornell University. I was so impressed with the spirit that they brought. I asked many of them to help perform the confirmations. Two of them had only recently received the Melchizedek Priesthood and this was their first time to perform an ordinance. One of these confirmed his wife, who was pregnant and had not been able to do baptisms. Our shift coordinator was the branch president for this branch which had traveled almost two hours to come to the temple. Later he shared some faith promoting stories about these great young adults, including a recent convert who was in this group.
The next day we had a group come from Penn State University, over 3 hours away. There was a young man from Bombay, India in this group who had been recently baptized. It was so good to feel of his powerful spirit and love for the Church of Jesus Christ. I had similar experiences with youth and adults from a Spanish Branch. I was able to use my Spanish abilities to perform confirmations in Spanish and help at the veil for the Spanish session.
This week Debbie and I officiated in an endowment session that included a beautiful couple from South Korea and we were able to provide language assistance for them. Meeting these faithful members of the Church from all over the world gives me great joy.
Visiting Historical Sites:
Peter Whitmer Farm:
I came on this mission, hoping to be in certain places at certain times of the year. I felt like it would help my understanding, and in my nerdy way, I think it is "cool". The first one of these dates was April 6, the day that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized in 1830. This happened to fall on Saturday, the same day as General Conference. Since the historical sites open for tours at 10:00 am and General Conference didn't start until noon, Eastern Time, we decided to invite the other temple missionaries to go with us to the Peter Whitmer Farm. All joined in. We were able to be in this historic location on the 194th anniversary of the organization. It was pretty "cool". As we left the visitors center to go to the replica log cabin, the sun came out for the first time that week. Personally, as I watched the special video in the visitor center, the Spirit confirmed once more to my soul that the hand of the Lord was in all that happened at the Peter Whitmer Farm. Of course this included the translation of much of the Book of Mormon, the manifestations to the Three Witnesses and finally the organization of The Church the next year. I am so grateful to be in these sacred spaces once again. I am so grateful to be part of The Church of Jesus Christ, restored to this earth in these latter-days!
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| 10 temple missionaries in front of the Peter Whitmer home |
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| Same missionaries with a view of the entire Peter Whitmer Home |
Sacred Grove Again:
This week Debbie had a meeting with other sister missionaries in the temple on Monday, where they learned how to care for clothing in the temple. I dropped her off for the one hour meeting and then went to the Sacred Grove to meditate and pray while I waited for her. This is one of the benefits of our mission, easy access to this sacred location. I am still trying to get a feel for the Sacred Grove at this time of the year (early Spring) when Joseph had his first vision. I found some of the leaves starting to appear and a feeling of Spring was in the air. It had been raining for most of the last week, so it was still a bit wet and a little muddy in places. However, the peace and calm was breathtaking. Clouds were in the sky, so the sun moved behind the clouds and then reappeared several times. Each time that the sun came back out I felt some of the emotion of Joseph Smith's first prayer. As I pondered and prayed, the Lord touched my heart and gave me clear direction on a few personal desires. I know that we can pray to our Heavenly Father in any place and at any time, but it is special to have these moments in the Sacred Grove. I think part of the benefit is to just be alone in a beautiful spot, with no interruptions of the world, and time to ponder and listen to divine guidance.
Later that day, I came back with Debbie to let her enjoy this same spirit. We will be back several times during our time here.
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| Green growth in the Sacred Grove is beginning by April 15 |
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| Most of these leaves are on new saplings in the grove |
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| In this incredible sacred location with the sun shining through |
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| Back later in the day with my sweetheart |
Exploring Palmyra:
We are getting to know our community. On our second day here, we signed up for a membership at the Palmyra Community Center, just about one mile from our home. There we have a wonderful gym location and more. Our fees are covered with the Silver Sneakers program which we qualify for. There are some benefits of getting old.
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| Photo taken on our way to the Palmyra Community Center on a snowy day |
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| A photo of part of the gym. Not too busy, meets our needs. |
We signed up for the 5 museum membership. As we toured the Palmyra Historic Museum, we found a mannequin with one of the costumes from the Hill of Cumorah pageant, which now is history.
We stopped at the Palmyra Town Hall to pay for E-ZPass. This Town Hall was originally a meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When the new stake center was built across from the temple, this building was donated to the city of Palmyra. This is where I attended Church meetings when visiting with my parents 55 years ago and again with some of my children during a visit in 1994.
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| Palmyra Town Hall, former meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints |
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| Memorial inside the Town Hall |
I learned that there is a rock wall around parts of the old Smith Farm, which includes the location of the temple. The following photo is taken from behind the rock wall looking down at the temple.
