Every 15 Minutes

 Conner had the opportunity to participate in the Every 15 Minutes program over the last several months. He was selected to participate in January and attended meetings and planned until this week.  The premise is the every 15 minutes someone dies from an alcohol related car crash. A car crash is staged on campus and several students die.  Conner was taken out of class and represented one of the "living dead."  It was an emotional time for all of us, even though you know it's not real.  The grim reaper came into his classroom to take him, they read his obituary and left a rose on his desk.  He was taken away and no-one saw him until the next day at the memorial service.  

We were glad that he had the opportunity to participate and help other students realize that their choices matter not only to them, but others as well.  

Just Serve!

Our family had the opportunity to participate in the Just Serve day of service.  We helped package 300,000 meals for hungry children in our area.  We were able to help last year too.  It's a fun, easy service project that makes a difference!

Special Olympics

 I had the opportunity to attend the Special Olympics with the kids from Terri's class.  It was a great day watching them compete and having so much fun!

I was proud of each and every one of them.  Great job B-8!

Happy Easter!

 Easter baskets for the two at home!

 Looks like the Easter Bunny came!

 Searching for eggs amidst the clean clothes.

Niagara Falls

 Our final day was spent at Niagara Falls.  We asked at the front desk which side of the falls was better, the US side, or the Canadian Side, and they told us the Canadian Side.  So ... we packed up the car and drove to the border crossing. 

 Once we got there and found a place to park, we started walking down the street from the falls to where all the attractions were.  We stopped to take quite a few pictures along the way.  Here we are where the river turns into the falls.

 Quite amazing!

 

  We just kept finding better spots for our pictures!

 The falls are so beautiful and so huge!  You can get an idea of the size by looking at the boat on the water.

 Conner, loving being in Canada! 

 Getting ready to go on the Hornblower Cruise to the falls.

 Not wet yet!

 Heading into the falls.  We got soaked!

 I escaped to the lower deck so I wouldn't get so wet.

 Soon the family followed! 

 

 It was fun, cold and wet!

 A view of both falls. 

 After our boat tour and some hot chocolate, we headed to some of the shops. 

 We found a Hershey store and spent more on candy than we were expecting.  We also got some yummy homemade treats! We did a little souvenir shopping and ate some lunch.

 Then, we headed behind the falls.

 We went down an elevator and walked through tunnels to see behind the falls. 

 There was a lot of history about the falls written on the walls in the tunnel.

 The rushing water going over the falls. So majestic! 

 After that, we walked back to our car and headed back across the border.

 We drove to the airport in Buffalo to begin our journey back home.  It was a fabulous trip and one of the best with our family!  Now, we just need to go back again!

Church History

When we awoke in Cooperstown, here was the snowy scene.

We had a beautiful drive through many small towns on our way to church history sites.  The water in the lake below was so high that some of the houses were partially submerged.

Our first stop was in Fayette, New York, which is the site of the Whitmer Farm.  They have a visitor's center there where they have missionaries who showed us an amazing movie about some of the miracles the Whitmer's experienced as they decided whether or not to host Joseph Smith as he performed some of the translation of the Book of Mormon.  It was a good reminder of how the Lord prepared this work to go forward.

We were able to go into a replica of the original log house where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was restored.  It began with six members and now there are more than 16 million.

After the tour of the Whitmer home and the visitor's center, the sister missionaries told us about a great grocery store where we could get lunch.  When we got there, we saw this Dutch Bakery sign and thought of Parker speaking Dutch on his mission.

The grocery store is called Sauders and is run by a Mennonite group.  They had huge and amazing sandwiches along with huge ice cream cones that we enjoyed.  The whole store was really neat.

We went to the Hill Cumorah visitor's center and they told us to start at the Smith Family Farm so we went there and went on the tour of the houses on the farm.  It was cool to hear the stories of places where Joseph hid the plates to preserve them from those who wanted to steal them.  They lived in such humble circumstances -- in one of these homes, the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph several times to tell him about the location of the Book of Mormon.

We were able to go into the Sacred Grove and spend time pondering.  Since we were then in April, this is likely very similar to how it would have looked (even though the movies depict lots of greenery).

I wonder if this is the view Joseph had as he looked up and saw the Father and the Son appear to him?

We headed back to the Hill Cumorah visitor's center and took a few pictures.  They told us we should go to the Grandin Press where the Book of Mormon was printed since that closed at 5 so that's where we headed next. 

The Grandin Press was awesome -- they took us on a tour and described how the printing press worked back then.  What a difficult task it was to set the press for each page.  We are so lucky today to be able to print with such ease.

Calissa said it would be awesome if we had one of these editions of the Book of Mormon so we had to remind her we actually do have one, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Burr!

We made it back to the Hill Cumorah visitor's center late in the day and took some beautiful pictures on top of the Hill Cumorah, including the various monuments and plaques.

We found the Dutch translation of the Book of Mormon in Parker's honor.

What a fascinating time we had at these church history sites.  It's such a testimony to see the Lord's hand in this great work.  We then headed to Niagara Falls for the night.

It was getting late but we were told we had to see the Falls at night when the lights are on it so we made the short drive and walk down there and got a few pictures while trying not to freeze!