Adventure Across the Country--Day 6

On the last leg of our journey, we woke up early and made a visit to the Palmyra temple, Hill Cumoruh, the old Joseph Smith home, and the Sacred Grove.

Of all of the church history sites we visited on our adventure across the country, the Sacred Grove felt the most hallowed. Here, God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ visited the 14 year old boy Joseph Smith in answer to a simple prayer: Which of all the churches was the true church of God? Their response: none on the earth. While they had parts of the truth, the true church of God had been taken from the earth with the death of the New Testament prophets and apostles. Here, Joseph Smith received his calling as a prophet. Later, Christ would restore the His only true church through his prophet. This church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints is still led by a prophet of God by revelation and direction from Jesus Christ.

Walking through the grove, you could feel a spirit very similar to one you might feel in the Celestial room of the temple. I felt a little irreverant taking so many pictures, but everything was so beautiful and peaceful.



Our church history tour concluded, we finished our final leg of the trip passing through NY, MA, and finally entering NH, our new home!


Daily Stats:

Miles driven: 418.7 mi
Average gas mileage: 35.82 mpg
States: 3 (NY, MA, NH)

Adventure Across the Country--Day 5

The drive today took us through beautiful Ohio countryside, where we made it to Kirtland by lunch time. We went and saw the Kirtland Temple, owned by Community of Christ church and then to all of the LDS sites at the Newel K. Whitney Store site. The church has some great things to see there (they've even made significant additions since my church history trip 6 years ago) and we learned alot in the visitor center and touring with a mature sister missionary.

The beautiful Kirtland Temple stands as a witness to the sacrifice of the saints in Kirtland. At the time, the largest building in Ohio, the Kirtland temple was the most expensive temple ever built by the members of the church, when adjusted for inflation, cost of living, poverty of the saints, etc.

Newel K. and Elizabeth A. Whitney were not raised religiously, but were seeking religion. Sidney Rigdon was a preacher who taught that they didn’t have complete truth yet, specifically the Holy Ghost. There needed to be a restoration before they could have everything, with prophets. N.K. and E.A. prayed for that restoration and had a vision that the restored church would come to Kirtland. At that same time, Joseph Smith had a vision with N. K. and E.A. such that when he got to Kirtland he walked right into the store and knew them.

Stony Brook, where the Whitneys, and many other Kirtland saints, were baptized. The brook would be temporarily dammed to provide the necessary depth.

The Whitneys were a very prosperous family, but they were willing to give everything to the Lord and his people for the building up of the kingdom of God. Even before the restored gospel came to Kirtland, They were very charitable with their wealth and shared generously with the poor in the community.

The Whitney residence. While most buildings at the time were painted with red paint (the cheapest available), Elizabeth had always dreamed of yellow house (the most expensive color of paint). As they were well enough off, Newel built his dear wife her dream house.

Because of N. K. Whitney's excellent record keeping, his store has been restored with great detail to how it was in the 1830s. The store served as a community landmark, social gathering site, the original Bishops Storehouse, site for church meetings, and in the upper level the school of the prophets, and a small apartment for Joseph and Emma after he was tarred and feathered by a mob.

The saw used to cut through the ice of Stony Brook to perform baptisms in the winter.

The small room for the school of the prophets, where early church leaders received instruction and revelation. Many personally testified that Christ Himself appeared to them on one occasion.

When temple construction began and many church members were building homes in the area, the local mill could not keep up with the demands. This mill could produce a single 16 ft board every 30 minutes. Soon after, a man approached Joseph Smith with a new technology that could run a mill off of only an inch of water (perfect for Stony Brook) and produce a board every 15 minutes! The church has built a working replica of this mechanical engineering wonder.


Whitney also owned an operated an ashery, which has been rebuilt by the church. The ashery would buy ashes for 50 cents a bucket (pretty good money, an animal hide would bring about 12 cents), then run water through the ashes to make lye. The lye could then be sold or boiled to generate pot ash (the black clumps shown in the picture) which could be used for fertilizer or soap and sold for $100 a barrel. The pot ash could also be baked in an oven at 1000 degrees F for several hours to make pearl pot ash, which was used to make china and sold for $200 a barrel. The materials produced here as well as the income generated by the ashery in great part financed the operations of the church as well as the temple construction. The site here is a monument to the Whitneys' as well as the rest of the Kirtland saints sacrifices and industry.

From Kirtland, we continued to travel and crossed through PA and NY, ending our daily drive just outside of Palmyra, NY.


Daily stats:

Miles driven: 427.0 mi
Average gas mileage: 33.65 mpg (lower gas mileage attributed to rush hour traffic through Chicago area and driving mostly 80 mph instead of 70)
States: 3 (OH, PA, NY)
Number of police car sightings: 17 (15 in OH, 1 in PA, 1 in NY)

Adventure Across the Country--Day 4

This day, we started in beautiful Nauvoo. Here, we walked all around the historic city, saw the amazing temple, visited several old shops like the brickyard and blacksmith, saw the Nathaniel Ashby house (relations to the Kerr side), took an ox ride, and rolled down a grassy hill!

In the end, Nauvoo was only a temporary dwelling place for the saints, but the Lord commanded them to build a city that would stand. Many of the brick buildings are still standing today in very good repair. The saints worked together to build up the city (making bricks and houses) and the temple, and then they worked together in their preparations out of the city (making wagons, etc.).

Who are these strangers? By luck, we met up randomly with our old friends Mike and Parissa Icely on their way from Oregon to Washington D.C. Isn't it funny that the road to Washington and NH just both happen to cross through Nauvoo?

From Nauvoo, we continued on the huge highways (not freeways) across a few states. Traffic was a little crazy across many lanes, but we survived and made it safely to Wauseon, OH, which put us in a good position to hit Kirtland the next day.

Daily stats:

Miles driven: 467.0 mi
Average gas mileage: 35.2 mpg
States: 5 (IL, IA, IL again, IN, OH)

Tolls paid: 3 ($0.60, $6.75, $1.50)

Lanes of traffic going through Chicago area: 12 (6 in each direction)

Adventure Across the Country--Day 3

Our drive on day three started us in Kansas and into Missouri. Those long, flat meadows of Kansas really had an effect on our mileage, as we calculated one tank to be 37.4 mpg, the best on our whole trip!

In Missouri, we saw the sites in the Kansas City area, including the site dedicated for the temple in Independence, the Community of Christ (formerly known as the RLDS) Conch Shell shaped temple, Liberty Jail, and world famous Arthur Bryant's BBQ.

One of the original cornerstones of the Independence Temple, dedicated by Joseph Smith.

The Community of Christ Temple.

Their church's mission is world peace.
Inside of the temple spire.

Megan commented that while many things about the Community of Christ temple were beautiful, the spirit and focus seemed to be entirely different. During our guided tour, the guide said gave us her opinion on different points of doctrine (being kind of wishy washy on their church's stance on these points) and told us how she was able to down play teachings from the Book of Mormon on her mission to Japan.

When we entered the LDS visitor center across the street, the sister missionary there taught that though the saints were heavily persecuted and driven out of Missouri, everything they did was centered in Christ. They were not ashamed of nor would they deny their beliefs in a living prophet or the Book of Mormon. They sacrificed all that the Lord asked them to in order to build beautiful cities and temples (referring also to Navoo and Kirtland) but left without question or turning back when the time came.

Kansas City is to BBQ as Utah is to jello casserole.

The very excellent pulled pork, on top of several slices of wonder bread, with a side of fries.

After lunch, we went to Liberty Jail. The floor of the jail is the actual floor that was there while the prophet Joseph Smith was incarcerated. I didn't remember that there were five men cramped into the six foot high prison. The sister missionary told us that one of the men who stood six and a half feet walked with a stoop for the rest of his life.

A cut-away replica of the jail.

When we left Kansas City, we spent the rest of the day driving through Missouri via small highways and small towns. What we thought would have taken just a few hours took more like six! On the podunk roads, Kathleen took a turn behind the wheel, and only stalled the manual transmission a few times in the first few towns. After dark, we crossed into Iowa and gave it a try while passing through river city. Then we crossed the Mississippi river into Illinois where we stayed the night in Nauvoo.

Daily stats:

Miles driven: 410.9 mi
Average gas mileage: 37.4 mpg
States: 4 (KS, MO, IA, IL)
Number of possums killed by Matthias on the way to Nauvoo: 1