YFE Palmyra New York

Ha ha So much for this blogging thing lol... I was so proud when i did three posts and now its been like two months and i haven't written ANYTHING. That's pretty pathetic if you ask me lol...So much has happened the past two months that I don't even know where to start. I guess a good place to start would be with my trip to New York. It was probably the most amazing experience of my life. There is so much I want to say and yet so much that I don't. I can't explain it. It was such an amazingly personal experience for me. I feel bad, I haven't even told my family very much about it. I was SOOOO unbelievably excited for this. I have learned more about myself in a few weeks than I have my entire life. Lets start from the beginning. We left on Saturday August 8. Andrea and I met at the Boise Airport and went through security and everything together. We flew to Salt Lake and I went to my dad's and she went to her grandma's house. It was a lot of fun for me to be able to spend a little bit of time with my brother and sister. I miss them SOOOO SOOO much sometimes. I wish we could have more time together. I flew out of Salt Lake on Monday morning at 6:30 in the morning. I flew to Chicago. Before I got off the plane the flight attendant went around telling everyone who had connecting flights where to go. We were flying into terminal A and he told me that I needed to go to terminal F for my next flight. It took me 40 minutes just to get acrossed the airport lol. That's partly because I stopped alot to look at things. I felt SO incredibly cool to be in Chicago. I took a MILLION pictures from the plane and from when I first stepped out into CHicago...Lame don't worry I know :). I also stopped at a cool little shop and bought myself a Chicago keychain...and i'm not gonna lie, its pretty legit...anyways I found my gate and I was looking on the board and I noticed that they had 2 flights going to Rochester but neither of them were my flight number or at the same time that my flight left...So I went up and asked the lady if I was at the right place and she looked at my ticket and was like Oh No not at all honey, your suppossed to be in a whole different building...So i panicked momentarily and I think she must have felt bad for me becasue she just said hold on one second and then turned as was like well I can get you on the plane that leaves in 10 minutes...are you ok with that...and so of course i was like OF COURSE i'm ok with that lol...funny story I kept eyeing this kid that was on my flight from Salt Lake wondering if he was going to YFE and when he got on the same plane as me going to Rochester I was pretty sure he was and i was right lol..His name was T.J. and he was an AMazing kid!!! Anyways so I ended up getting to New York 3 hours a head of schedule ! I was STOKED... I walked around for quite awhile because I wasn't sure who I was suppossed to find and then after I passed this girl like 5 times we awkwardly asked each other if we were going to YFE and of course it turns out we were !!! There were 4 of us. Londel, Katelyn, T.J., and Me. We all rode to the hotel together with one of the counselors Katie. Once we got to the hotel, We got our room keys and we met back in the big conference room. That's where I met my AWESOME counselor Brittany. SHe was way cool. We all just kinda chilled and talked and played games. Then we decided that we were hungry so we called and ordered food. Brittany and I shared a pineapple pizza...lol it was DELICIOUS!!! Then we played this AMAZING game called Ninja Destruction...I am definitly in love with this game...After that everyone started to show up ! I was SOOOOOOOO excited when my Andrea rose got there lol...It was tons of fun to start meeting everyone. My roommates were Andrea, and two girls from Utah named Candace and Heather. Crazy side note story, Andrea and Candace were really good friends when they were little and ANdrea lived in Utah. That night we all just kinda chilled and had pizza AGAIN for dinner except this pizza was really really yummy pizza lol. Then we hung out for awhile and T.J decided he would take my camera and take as many ridiculously random pictures that he could it was really funny..we had some awesome pictures after that lol..That was basically all we did that night. The next day me and andrea and a few other girls woke up early so we could go to the Sacred Grove. It is so gorgeous around that area. The sacred grove is like 1/4 mile away from the hotel..We passed the Palmyra temple on our way and that is another absolutly GORGEOUS sight. Its kinda up on a hill a little ways and when the sun hits it just right... I don't know that I've seen very many things that were more beautiful...(I sound REALLY REALLY old right now). It was crazy when we got to the sacred grove I had a deep deep spiritual feeling... WE didn't even notice that we were whispering. I can't even explain how it felt. Nor do I even want to try to much. As the time has gone it has become more and more significant to me, and I can only imagine what it must have been like for Joseph Smith. Later that day we went down to the Sacred Grove and took a tour of all the sites there. We broke up and went through by our groups and while my group was waiting we sat outside and sang the songs in our group. We set it as a goal to sing every song by the end of the trip. It was a great way to get the spirit with us. When we started our tour a Sister missionary kind of gave us a little bit of background on everything and then she took us to Joseph's families log cabin. I don't remember how much of it is original but I do know that it was over 50 % original. It was crazy to go upstairs in the room that Moroni visited Joseph Smith in. The cabin looked really really small on the outside, but I was surprised at how big it actually was. After we visited the log cabin we went up just a little bit farther and saw the house that Joseph and Alvin had helped build for their family. The fireplace there was something like 85 % original. This is also where Joseph hid his plates under the floor boards. AT this place we weren't allowed to go upstair because even though the houses were less than 100 yards apart, they were in different counties, and the counties had different fire codes. After that we went to a barn and got some cool pictures, then group two went to a bridge and got some cool group pictures. After that we had more time to go through the Sacred Grove...I spent most of the time walking around, just thinking. The thought came to me that while this was an amazing experience for me, I was so grateful to know that I didn't have to go all the way acrossed the United States to feel the spirit. The spirit is the spirit. It is or can be just as strong in Nampa , Idaho and it can be in the Sacred Grove in Palmyra New York. I knew that I didn't need a life altering experience there to know what I already knew. Once I walked for awhile I finally found a place to stop and read my scriptures for awhile. It felt good to just sit and read and not have any thing else on my mind. Its amazing how the spirit can clear your mind and give you peace when you need it. After the Sacred Grove we went and had lunch at the Picnic place by the church. After Lunch me, Katelynn, Andrea, and Todd decided to try to play frisbee with a cookie, then we decided to play baseball ( i don't remember if we used the smashed cookie or an apple) then someone got the crazy idea to go and roll down the hill so off we went to roll down the hill. It was SOOOOO much fun. Later that day during free time a few of us decided we wanted to try to walk to town but we only got about half way there before we decided to come back. But we did get some fun pictures. One of a small little dog that i'm pretty sure wanted to eat us and another of this yard with tons us little gnomes and stuff in it. Later that night we went to the Hill Cumorah. That was another really cool experience. FUn facts, the guy who built the Moroni monument up on top of the hill made him 10 ft 4 in.. does that ring a bell with any one?????? no ? No? NO? ok i'll tell .... ANy one remember a pretty important scripture in Moronie 10:4? pretty cool huh..anyways while we were at the monument we had a little devotional type thing and everyone got to share their favorite scripture...The one I shared was 2 Nephi 33:3. It says : But I Nephi, have written what I have written, and I esteem it as of great worth and especially unto my people. For I pray continually for them by day, and mine eyes water my pillow by night, because of them; and I cry unto my God in faith, and I know that He will hear my prayer. ... I have always loved that scripture...but that night I saw it in a different light...It was another tender mercy from Heavenly Father...that was His way of telling me that He was hearing my prayers for my family. AFter we had our devotional they gave us about 1/2 hr to go walk around and kinda mingle with each other. I decided to kinda go off by myself and I found this really cool stair way that went down the hill that was lined with thick green tree's. It was a place where no one could see me and I could be alone. This was also one of the tender mercies that Heavenly Father gave me on this trip. For the first time in my life, I was ok with just sitting, with just being alone and being quiet and keeping my heart open to the things that Heavenly Father had to tell me. I have learned more than I ever thought possible. Its interesting though because I think that I have learned more looking back on the experiences that I had than actually at the time because there was SO much going on that it was hard to comprehend it all and take it all in. We went back to the hotel that night and had our group devotional. It was about the atonement. We were all in a small little artifact room but the spirit was AMAZING. We went WAY over our time limit but that was ok because we learned so much that night from each other. The next day was a REALLY REALLY busy day. That was the day we went into Palmyra village (I think thats what it was anyways) They have Palmyra City and Palmyra Village... Anyways the first place we went to that day was to visit the graves. It was a really cool cemetary. It reminded me of the Salt Lake CEmetary. We saw some really old graves. I wish I could remember who all we saw. I know we Alvin for sure, and also Lucy Harris. After the graves we went down and had lunch at a fun little park. ( i forgot to mention earlier that all of our food was catered by a yummy place) HA i was SOO tired. I went and layed down on the carosel thing and i actually fell asleep !!!! A few girls got some lovely pictures of me lol ! After the park we went to the Grandin Press where the Book of Mormon was first printed. It was really cool. I didn't realize what all went into actually making the book. There were some parts of the floor that were completely original.. There was also some ink marks on the floor that were completely original. After the tour we watched a JOseph smith movie which I'm sorry to say I fell asleep for :(. but only for like 10 minutes of it...not that i'm making excuses or anything but I was REALLY REALLY exhausted lol. Then we had free time. We all decided that we wanted to go to this cool ice cream place. I don't remember what its called though. Anyways we thought it was gonna be ALOT closer than it was but it definitly wasn't. At the place they were telling us all to get smalls and we were like ok...Ha the smalls were FOUR SCOOPS !!! it was the biggest small ice cream cone i've ever seen. Later that night we had a class in the sacred grove and then got to have some more personal time. After the sacred grove we went over to walk the Palmyra Temple grounds. It was Amazing but the bugs were DISGUSTING!!! my poor best new york friend Emily had bug bites absolutley EVERYWHERE!!!! After walking the temple grounds we went to the church that was right by there and had a talent show. It was ALOT of fun. There were some pretty amazing talents. THis kid Todd played a song he wrote himself. ANother kid did like ballroom dancing lift thingys. Me, Emily, Cerena, Melanie, and our counselor Brittany sang Walk Tall. It was really cool. Brittany was such an awesome example to all of us. She was so spiritual. A few girls were really nervous before so we went into the gym and practiced a little bit and then said a prayer. After the talent show we had more ice cream which i didn't eat becasue i was SO SICK of ice cream. Ha but we were in the gym and T.J. decided to tie up his hoodie like a basketball and we played 1 on 1. Well I was under the hoop and pump faked and he went for it but i didn't realize it and i went up and totally dropped him. lol ...IT WAS SOOOOO FUNNY !!!! That night we had another good devotional and then went to sleep pretty easily cause we were all REALLY tired. The next day was our last full day there. :( That was the day we got to do baptizms in the Palmyra temple. It was really cool. Again we seperated into groups so my group stayed outside while group 1 was in and we sang songs from our book. THe inside of the temple was really pretty. They had stain glass pictures of the first vision in the windows. There was a window that you could see the Sacred Grove out of. It really shocked me though because the workers were really loud. It kinda bothered me. I got confirmed for a Fizzle lol. The baptisimal font area is REALLY small. The water was REALLY warm too. That was kinda wierd and I had never worn socks into the font before. But it was still really cool. It was funny some of the girls forgot extra bra's so they all used my 'community' sports bra after i was done...AWKWARD lol... After the temple we went to Fayette to the Peter Whittmer Farm. That's where the church was organized and it was really cool to see it. We went on a tour there. The visitor's center is actually also a chapel that the people use. After the tour we had a question and answer thing and then headed back to Palmyra. It was funny all 15 of us in the van were OUT on the way back. We went straight to the Hill Cumorah VIsitors center. They actually have a Christus there too so we saw that. Then we watched the Joseph Smith movie, which was really cool. It felt alot more personal because I felt like I could relate to it more. After dinner that night we went to the sacred grove for testimony meeting. It was an amazing experience. There were alot of fire flies!!!! It was quite exciting actually. We had our last devotional that night and it was the best one! It went on for a really long time but we were all ok because there was just so much to talk about. After devotional that night, Brittany and I got to talk about school. She's one of the ambassadors at school and i just really wanted to talk to her about my doubts and fears of going to school. We talked until about 1:30 in the morning. It was amazing I was given so much peace after talking to her. The whole trip doubts had been coming HEAVILY to my mind about going to school at BYUI and she really helped me to seperate things out in my head. Before we went to bed that night she was like oh and by the way a few of us are going to the sacred grove at 6:30 in the morning if you want to come...I was like WAT!!! but I woke up to go and I am SOOO glad I did. I decided to take my patriarcle (SP?) blessing with me and read it.It was amazing the clarity that I had. I also opened my scriptures up to Mosiah 4. That is probably one of the best chapters in the Book of Mormon. I wrote in my scriptures that it had the secrets and keys for life. Anyways the scripture I found was in Mosiah 4:8 it says: "Believe in God, believe that He is is, and that He created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believethat he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehendeth" That scripture directly relates to the things that I was talking to Brittany about. Just another tender mercy from Heavenly Father. SO we got back to the hotel and packed up and headed out. There were like 7 of us I think that were on the same plane to Atlanta together but alot of other kids's gates were right by ours so we all got to hang out till our planes left. I think some people got quite annoyed because we were like standing in the middle of the airport taking pictures together. But who care's we were having fun. Since i've already wrote a TON i'll just sum up the rest of my trip like this..I left at 10 in the morning (techniqually 8 AM my time) and didn't get home till midnight ish ... enough said...lol..I am so grateful I got to go on this trip. I will look back on it for the rest of my life. I still have SO much to learn from it !!!