We also visited Carthage while we were at Nauvoo. It was a little different than Nauvoo made us a bit sad at what happened there. I think for us as we traveled along the way there were places that we celebrated the history of the church and there were those that were a bit surreal. You come away with the feeling of "how could people treat others that way?". This was one of those places.
Off to Kirtland Ohio we went. We met some old friends there, Pres.and Sister Butterfield. He was Byron's Bishop when he went on his mission and good friends with Byron's parents. Which by the way came with us on this trip, we needed someone to split the cost of gas and car rental, ha ha. This is the Kirtland Temple. We was able to get a tour of it. It was intresting how it was layed out, not like any of the temples today. There is a large chapel area with pulputs on both ends of the chapel and were curtains rolled up that could be unrolled to divide the chapel into smaller rooms for classes. Upstairs were more offices and classrooms. It is a beautiful building to bad the LDS church doesn't own it, the spirit wasn't there.
This home was the home of John Johnson, a member of the church in Kirtland. Joseph Smith stayed here and received many revelations. It was also used as a meeting house for the saints of the area. Not far from here was where William Earl had a good size farm and we wondered if he was present to hear and meet the prophet.
Next it off to Palmyra where we had a spiritual overload. this is the Temple there and when your inside you can sit and overlook the Sacred Grove. What a great experience it was to visit the place where it all began. we visited the Smith home, then went into the Sacred Grove, what a peaceful place that is, we could have stayed there all day. Palmyra is a pretty town with rolling hills all around and green, they said they were in a drought but you couldn't tell it was so green.
About 5 miles or so from the Smith home is Hill Cumorah. It is a large hill and from the top you can see for miles in each direction. The hill is covered in trees except for an area which is cleared for the pagent. I wish I knew how to place more pictures on my blog to show you all the places we visited, it was a very spiritual trip and one we wont forget for a long time. We will be going back again, this time with the name of our ancestors to get any info we can about them. 
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