This was a short work week for us because the archives closed on Thursday and Friday but a long week of travel which I think exhausted us both! It was one of those weeks where you need a vacation to recover from the vacation! The good news for us came from the archive director who told us that file folders have been ordered and we will be back in business as far as document preparation goes. We ran out of the folders and that meant we kept taking pictures but we weren't replacing documents that would need to have pictures taken of them. He was pretty sure they would come in on Monday so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
Our big plans for the week was to leave Thanksgiving morning and drive to Pennsylvania where we would spend time in a centrally located hotel-we chose a town called Dickson. On Friday we drove south to see Philadelphia and then west to Gettysburg and Lancaster to enjoy the Amish country. We made it to Philadelphia where we were able to see the new Philadelphia Temple which is about one year from completion and then hung out around Market Street for a couple of hours. While there we visited the Forest Service visitors center and saw a great movie called Independence! and then just walked around looking at the wonderful history that so permeates the area. We had been there many years ago and it was jammed packed with people but this time it was not nearly as crowded although there were still lines waiting to see several of the exhibits. As we were getting ready to leave we walked over towards the parking garage and on the way I got distracted by a yellow "police crime scene--do not cross area" and managed to stumble and fall flat on my face which sadly broke the camera in my pocket. Fortunately, I was able to get back up pretty quickly and move on pretending like I was fine although I knew that I was going to have a serious bruise on my leg by the end of the day! Once back in the car we headed towards Gettysburg which was another two+ hours away and the longer we drove the less convinced we were that we would have time to get there before it started turning dark and so we adjusted our schedule and decided we would have to be happy with the time we spent in Philadelphia. We headed back to the hotel.
The best part of the trip was on Saturday morning when we drove to Susquehanna, PA to visit the Priesthood Restoration site. What a beautiful area and what an excellent job the Church did of preserving such a significant piece of LDS history. We started our time there watching a video about the events that took place leading up to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery receiving the priesthood. It was a great video and I thought the man they chose to portray Joseph Smith was exceptional. From there we saw the statues of that event outside of the visitors center and then walked over to the Hale home where Emma and Joseph lived with her parents for a short time. They then moved up the road to a little house where 70% of the translation of the Book of Mormon took place. When we got back to the visitors center we loved all the displays that were there highlighting various aspects of our church doctrine. We also saw an original 1830 copy of the Book of Mormon and some dishes and utensils that they found when they were excavating the Hale home for renovation. The tour guide was a sister who is serving with her husband as the visitors center directors and they had come from Wyoming. She did a great job of showing us around. Before leaving the area we went to the edge of the Susquehanna River where Joseph and Oliver were baptized and then given the Aaronic Priesthood. We were pleasantly surprised when we got back into the car to leave and found that we had been there over two hours. We walked back into our apartment at 8 p.m. last night and gladly went to bed! Our trip didn't go as we had planned but it was still a great adventure and we again realized how blessed we have been to be called to serve here in New England. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
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