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| Helping at the Bishop's Storehouse |
Feb 9th, Saturday
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| Sister Beavers, a Jackie Grange look-a-like |
A busy day at the temple as we head into a two week cleaning shut down. I worked in the office for the afternoon shift. There were three of us and we kept busy with phone calls, printing family cards, etc. The other sister got confused about how to keep the family requests in order. I was able to step in and sort it out. There were duplicates and multiple patrons per sheet but it was a simple thing to match the names and get that all in order. I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the many facets of the office. I have been assigned there several times lately so it is beginning to stick.
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| Hornell Primary Children and Leaders |
Feb 10th, Sunday
I played the piano for Sacrament Meeting. The closing hymn was #106 “God Speed the Right”. Suddenly, I heard these sweet young voices singing with gusto. Parker (6) and Ryker Seamons (4) were gathered around their father, where they could see the hymnal. Every time we would sing “God Speed the Right”. They would sing with all their energy, with great smiles on their faces, and joy from their hearts. It was a sweet, tender moment and a memory that will help this be a favorite hymn.
Now to heaven our prayer ascending, Good speed the right;
In a noble cause contending, God speed the right.
Be our zeal in heaven recorded,
With success on earth rewarded.
God speed the right. God speed the right.
Patient, firm and persevering, God speed the right;
No event nor danger fearing, God speed the right.
Pains, nor toils, nor trials heeding,
And in heaven's good time succeeding,
God speed the right. God speed the right.
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| Treats for the road. |
Feb. 11th, Monday
We left just before 8am with the Barlow’s to visit Sharon, Vermont and the birthplace of Joseph Smith. It was a bit complicated to get there and required me to be vigilant with map quest. It was a beautiful, crisp day. The sun was out but the temperatures a bit frigid. We enjoyed our tour and learning more about the Smith family and miracles that surrounded the placing of the obelisk.
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| Pickups and Barlows |
Feb. 12th Tuesday
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| Pickups, Bonds, Barlows at the Toronto Temple |
Montreal Quebec. The Montreal temple is the same basic floor plan as Palmyra so we easily navigated our way around. It was a joy to see Bruce and Laurie Randal from Vancouver, WA who are serving a CES mission in Montreal. The session was full and the spirit strong. Afterward, we looked around the temple and drooled over the laundry room which was easily twice as big as the one at Palmyra. We headed to Dunn’s Famous for lunch. What a joyous reunion we had with Bruce and Laurie, catching up on family events and remembering our service together in the Vancouver North Stake. Around 2pm we knew we needed to say our goodbyes and get on the road. The weather was threatening.
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| Pickups and Randalls at the Toronto Temple |
We made it a good hour, maybe two before the roads became an issue. Just before crossing into the US, we took the wrong left exit ending up on a road which had not been plowed. We quickly turned around and found our way to the border crossing. The roads to and from the border had not been plowed making us a bit nervous on what the rest of the drive might be like. Dave asked the border officer what the weather and roads were like ahead. The officer replied “You’re looking at it”. We proceeded cautiously. It was hard to see the road as we left but managed to stay on track. We crossed several bridges over 1000 Islands. The roads beyond were plowed but still slow going, 30-40 mph was as safe and steady speed. Dave was a champion driver. This is new to him being from southern California but he did great. We encouraged him along the way. We got home around 10pm, 3 hours later than we expected. But grateful we did not have an accident and grateful for a warm comfortable vehicle and apartment.
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| Pickups, Titsworths, Barlows |
Feb. 14th Thursday
Heading on another road trip with the Barlows to the Toronto Temple. We arrived to find Titsworths there. Then to our delight, Elder and Sister Cragun were there to greet us. We were together at our training in SLC last May. I had seen them at the Palmyra temple a few months ago. Sister Cragun found me in the locker room and we just kept crossing paths through out our time there: name issue, veil, lunch room, locker room, bathroom...at almost every turn she was there to give me a hug and a dose of love.
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| It is Valentine's Day after all |
After our session, the assistant recorder took us on a fun little tour of the sealing rooms, the baptistery, the lunch room (old cafeteria), and even the storage room where hung a gold leafed Moroni that was struck by lightening.
We stopped at Cheesecake Factory for dinner (in Buffalo) arriving just before 5pm. We were immediately seated which surprised me on Valentine’s Day. However, things soon filled up and there was quite a wait by the time we left. Another marvelous day. The weather dry and sunny, no issues at border crossing, happy conversation...all was safe and wonderful.
Feb. 15th, Friday
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| Mt. Moriah Cemetery |
Ray and I took off around 9am. We had planned to leave earlier but we were working to gather information for the Mt. Moriah Cemetery, hoping to visit John Pickup’s grave. It turns out that John, his wife and daughter were originally buried in the Asbury Methodist Episcopal (AME) cemetery but were moved in the 1800’s to make room to build a chapel. That building has burned to the ground and there is now a university building where it once stood. The Mt. Moriah Cemetery fell into disarray a few years ago and now, with the help of volunteers is slowly getting put back in order. We learned enough to know that many of those moved from AME were buried in section 138 so we finally decided to venture forth.
Another lovely day, sunny and warm. We arrived at the cemetery around 1pm.
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| half buried head stone |
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| Searching for John Pickup |
I love tromping through cemeteries and enjoyed our time there very much. The weather was about 60 degrees making it pleasant all around. Section 138 had been mowed down, which we were not expecting. We looked at every headstone and were saddened by the disarray. No sign of Pickups. Our contact with the The Friends of Mount Moriah shared that they are slowly going through the records and trying to update the mapping of the cemetery, so maybe the information is buried (no pun intended) and will be uncovered sometime in the future.
Currently, no one seems to have any information on where those moved were buried.
We arrived at the temple for the 6:30pm session, surprised to see the Leavitt’s in the elevator. How fun. The temple is large and bit confusing so it was helpful that I had been there before making it possible to get dressed and up to the endowment room in less than 10 minutes.
Afterward, we enjoyed yet another tour of the sealing rooms on the 4th floor, the youth center, and art work. One sealing room is gigantic, bigger than our endowment room.
We drove around the old Town Hall building looking for somewhere to eat. Nothing was tempting us until we drove by a Chili’s. We decided to order T0-G0 (fajitas) and eat in our hotel room. This proved to be a good option, except they forgot to put in all the toppings (cheese, sour cream, guacamole, etc.) If I could have stood to drive one more time, I might have ventured back out. But the parking was a block away and we just ran out of steam. Surprisingly the dinner was delicious even without all the toppings. We also had Molton Lava cake and chips and salsa.
Feb. 16, Saturday
We headed to the temple again to discover that the sessions were full for the morning. We elected to stay and do sealings. They were very efficient in the way they made assignments. We were in that large room I mentioned earlier. We stayed about an hour and a half and watched many come and go. In the end we were able to finish over 30 sealings.
We left Philly and headed for Maryland to visit Kelli and Shawn Gravelle. Ray took a shining to the children and quickly won their hearts: Jorga, Lexi, and Bronson. All her children are adorable but Bronson won my heart. He was a mini version of Alex with red hair. We were instant buddies. He giggled as I dropped cars down his shirt, gave me big hugs, and shared his treasures. I listened to Jorga play the piano, and watched Lexi show off her flexibility. It was a great few hours. All too soon, it was time to get going. We had a long drive ahead of us and they had plans for the evening.
Ray drove for a while until we stopped for sandwiches and gas. Then I drove the difficult stretch while he slept. The first part was not too bad up to Corning but then you cut across the farm land between the finger lakes. The roads are poorly kept and lots of stop signs. I must say it was probably easier to drive than to give directions. I just mount my phone in front of the speedometer and follow it home.
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| Pickups with Shawn and Kelli Gravelle |
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| At the Philedelphia Temple |
Feb. 17th Sunday
Ray’s text to the family
Mom and I made it back to Palmyra late last night, Saturday night, about 11:30pm.....just in time to gas up and get ready to travel to Hornell for church today, Sunday. We had a wonderful but very exhausting week. We traveled to Sharon, Vermont on Monday to visit the birth place of Joseph Smith, then to Montreal, Quebec, Canada to visit with the Randall's (Bruce and Laurie) from Vancouver who are on a CES mission there and attend the Montreal Temple, battling a severe snow storm all the way back Tuesday night, then visited President and Sister Schwendiman in Rochester NY who had knee surgery, on Wednesday, then on Thursday traveled to Ontario, Canada to visit the Toronto Temple, then on Friday we traveled the opposite direction to Philadelphia, PA to hunt for our ancestors John Pickup and Elizabeth Pickup (Peacup) graves in the Mount Moriah cemetery in Philadelphia, which we found but could not identify which were their exact graves due to lack of grave markers and exact grave plot number information, then to the Philadelphia Temple for a night session and back in the morning on Saturday to the Philadelphia Temple to do about 30-40 of our ancestors sealings that we had not been able to do in Palmyra, then discovered that the church that originally buried John and Elizabeth Pickup in 1837 and 1838 had burned to the ground in 1997, then we headed to Baltimore, Maryland to visit my niece Kelli and
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