The Biggest Trip EVER: Palmyra, New York

Sorry it's been a while for me to write a post. I was so busy trying to get so many deadlines done for school. At least I'm almost done. Remember that I still have a lot to talk about our biggest out-of-state trip? Well, it was after Kirtland. This place we went to was Palmyra, New York. Even though we didn't get to take a tour around Manhattan, or Central Park, we still got to go to three special parts of New York. We went to see a big view of Niagara Falls. It was amazing of how it looked, but we made sure that none of the little kids could try to climb through the fence.

Then we went to another part of it. It's another church history story. We went to the Sacred Grove and the village where Joseph Smith lived in his childhood. I'm going to tell you about the story. When Joseph Smith was twelve years old, he went two different churches that he wasn't so sure of which one was right or wrong. He was at his home one night and read a verse in the Bible in James 1: 5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." After he read the heading, he went out in the Sacred Grove to pray to the Father in Heaven. He made sure he was alone. As he was, he knelt down to his knees and started praying. Then he felt an evil power attacking him. It was Satan trying to keep him from praying. But Joseph Smith still prayed really hard away from that evil power. Then he saw a pillar of light that was brighter than the sun. From the light, he saw two personages. One of them spoke unto him calling him by name and pointing by the other. "This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!" Right when Joseph asked them of which churches he should join. He was then answered that he should join none of them, for they were all wrong. Right when the personages left, Joesph Smith went back to his home to tell his family. Unfortunately, he told some professors about his Vision, lots of them thought he was a liar. They kept on saying that there are no such things as visions. But Joseph Smith really did see a vision. When some people don't believe him, he asked himself "Why persecute me for telling the truth? I have actually seen a vision and who am I that I can withstand God or why does the world think to make me deny what I have actually seen? For I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it."

That is one of my favorite Church history stories. Lots of them make me happy, and some of them make me sad. We went inside the Sacred Grove, it looked exactly like the story. When we were in it, we had to be so reverent through it. Since it was called the Sacred Grove, we had to have half an hour of silence and to think about how we could pray to Heavenly Father anywhere else, just like Joseph Smith did. Before we went through the Sacred Grove, we also went through the museum about Joseph Smith's village. There were lots of good building about what Joseph and his family did. I liked the story about Joseph's older brother, Alvin. He built a nice looking house for the family so that they could live there, before his death at 26. Right when Alvin Smith died, the untrue churches thought that if he never got baptized before his death, he would be lost. But with more advice from Heavenly Father, Joseph Smith found out that Alvin is not lost. That's when he learned about Eternal Families. It means that families can be together forever, if it is followed through Heavenly Father's Plan of Redemption. For a big family like us, I'm sure that we'll be a family for eternity.

I like to share so much experience with everyone online, there is one more thing we did in Palmyra, we got to go see another show that was unlike the Nauvoo Pageant, we got to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It was mostly about the Book of Mormon stories that lots of people know and love. It was really a cool Pageant, because the hill was the stage. Lots of the stories looked kind of like it was all real. Right when we were done, we then went back to the hotel to get to bed before the next day of our trip. I hope you really loved the story I told you about. Next time, I'll talk about the next place we went to.

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The Biggest Out-of-State Trip EVER: Kirtland, Ohio

I'm now back to blogging. I'm going to talk about another thing that happened on the trip. After Detroit, Michigan, we then did a lot of driving to Ohio. The next stop was another Church History place called Kirtland. In Kirtland, we went to go see the Kirtland, Ohio temple, that used to be an LDS temple, but it got taken over by another religion. Right when they called the Kirtland Temple the Community of Christ, instead of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It made me a little upset that I wanted to judge that religion for taking over the Kirtland temple, but I kept being silent through it. We did tour inside the Kirtland Temple. It was the temple where Joseph Smith and all his friends taught the restoration to people who lived in Kirtland.

Remember that story that I talked about the mob who killed Joseph Smith at the Carthage Jail? Well, before that ever happened when Joseph Smith was alive, the mob was trying to find Joseph Smith so that they could kill him, hoping the whole LDS church restoration would stop. But, I'll talk more about the hard life Joseph Smith had when he tried to Preach the Gospel. And also what happened in Kirtland, this might sound a little sad, but one night when he and his wife, Emma were asleep, the mob broke into the home and captured Joseph. They brought him outside to torment him. They started ripping his clothes off and they put hot tar on his bare skin. Then they put feathers on the hot tar that was put on him. After the mob left him with all the hot tar and feathers on him, Emma brought him back inside and started washing all the feathers and tar off. When I heard of that part of the story, I thought that was totally sad. I didn't like the way that the mob would do something like that. Right when we started the trip back East, I was hoping we wouldn't run into any people who would cause any harm on us, but it never did. That's because we've been having faith and praying to Heavenly Father for safety while we traveled. He does answer prayers every time you pray to him.

Anyway, at the Kirtland Temple, there is one true thing that happened there with Joseph Smith and all of the other saints. They say a light outside the window that showed the spirit of Heavenly Father being at the first LDS temple. After we toured the inside of the temple, we then started to take a tour of the cemetery, right next to it. There was a whole bunch of people who died in Kirtland. What I was hoping to see was the grave of Joseph's older brother, Alvin. But there never was, because Alvin Smith died at a different place where I'm about to talk about next time.

After touring the cemetery, we then went to the visitor's center to take a tour of the town of Kirtland. It was named after Newel K. Whitney. He owned his home a store and an ashery. They were a strong family to do a lot of that work to pump water with a watermill. It was a lot of fun to tour the church history in Kirtland. After we were done touring, we drove across Ohio to keep going back East to do the rest of the trip. On the way, we stopped at a Target and a Red Robin in Cleavland. Ohio was fun. Next time, I'll talk more about the rest of the trip. I hope you enjoyed this post about another story of Church History.

The Biggest Out-of-State Trip Ever: Detroit, Michigan

That other post is off. I'm sorry, but my mom told me that my Owl City paper was a bad idea to put up on my blog, because, besides followers, someone could try to steal all the hard work I did on the paper. So it's deleted. But the concert is not. Now I'm going back to talk about the rest of the trip. I'm now going to talk about Detroit, Michigan.



After touring through the rest of Nauvoo, we did a lot of driving again to get to another place. We were enjoying the drive a little. So, we stopped in Detroit Michigan and stayed at a hotel for a couple of days until it's time to travel again. In Detroit, we had some fun there. We went to a fun factory where they made some very good chocolate. It was the only chocolate factory in Detroit, but it was very good.

Even though some parts of the trip that we're aren't touring other parts for church history, we still do Teach's challenge. The challenge is to give a nice person a Book of Mormon. The nice person who was totally respectful of us and did something nice for us. It is a fun challenge.



Anyway, after the Chocolate factory, we went to tour another factory in Detroit. It was my little brother, Sport's favorite factory. It was the Ford factory. It's where they make a whole bunch of vehicles for lots of people who need them. We couldn't take a lot of pictures of us at the Ford factory, but I'm sure it was totally a blast. So, after the Ford Factory, we then started driving to a little town in Detroit where they had a cupcake store that all us, kids were excited for it. It was so delicious about a lady who worked there that she was very nice. So we then found the Detroit, Michigan LDS temple. We didn't take much pictures of it but one. We were only stopping by it for a few minutes before we were having dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Detroit was totally a fun trip, but I still have lots of places to talk about of wherever we traveled.
There is one more thing that I like to talk about our trip in Michigan. We found the Michigan Lake and we started to wade in it. This might sound silly, but we didn't have our swimsuits, so we we had to wade in the lake in our clothes. It was fun though. After we waded in the lake, we started to look through the laundry bag to find a new pair of clothes.




Detroit was really fun to see the factories and the temple there. Next time I'm going to talk about our trip to Kirtland, Ohio. I'm sure you will love the rest of the trip.

The Biggest Out-of-State Trip EVER: Nauvoo, Illinois

I'm now going to tell you about another place we went to on our biggest trip. We finally made it to Nauvoo to do a city tour their about what happened there. Nauvoo is the city that had the saints keep on having the Restoration. Joseph Smith the LDS Prophet was the first one. He had been the LDS prophet in the 19th century. Joseph Smith was a really great prophet in that time. I tell you more about it in later posts about him being a great LDS Prophet.

Anyway, we went through all over Nauvoo, that we toured through some old-fashioned buildings, even when they have been restored to make it more like a museum. We got to see inside the Visitor's Center a lot of portraits and statues about Nauvoo. We got to see a musical that was played by a lot of missionaries. The musical was totally hilarious and they had some really cool songs playing. Before any of that, my Dad, my sisters, Teach Princess, Prima Donna, and I got to do something special for us. The Nauvoo temple was an open house that we were allowed to do Baptisms for the Dead. The Nauvoo Temple's Baptismal Font was way bit different than the other ones at other temples back West. It was fun to do Baptisms for the Dead at the Nauvoo Temple.

We had some time to go to Carthage before doing the rest of the touring in Nauvoo before going to another place the next day.

Now I'm going to tell you one thing that happened to Joseph Smith in Carthage. In Carthage, Joseph Smith was taken to a Carthage Jail for trying to preach the Gospel to almost a lot of people. That sounds kind of wrong, but Joseph Smith had no choice. He couldn't deny all of the preaching just to get out of Carthage. At the Carthage Jail, a mob went into it and they were trying to break through the room of where Joseph Smith, his brother, Hyrum, and other Saints that were with him. Joseph Smith and Hyrum had been killed at the Carthage Jail. The mob thought that killing Joseph Smith would make the LDS church stop. Unfortunately, the LDS church never stopped. It had been continued on and on for eternity. Right when we were inside the Carthage Jail, since it is a museum jail, it almost made me cry to hear about the martyr of Joseph Smith. I hope that you understand all about the history of Joseph Smith right when I'm telling you about it.

Nauvoo Temple

Right at nighttime, after we toured through a lot of buildings to learn about what the Pioneers did in Nauvoo, we got to go see some special Nauvoo pageant, even though it was only a dress rehearsal. There weren't any mistakes that they did. They all did a very good job. Right when the Pageant was over, we went to take a family photo in Nauvoo Temple Square at nighttime. We were trying to make sure that the whole family would be able to be in the picture. My dad and Teach were trying to make better pictures to makes sure that everyone is in the picture by Photoshopping it. Right when we were finished taking pictures of us around Nauvoo Temple Square, we packed in our van and drove back to our hotel to get some sleep before doing another long drive to another place back east. Next time, I'll tell you about another place we went to.

Biggest Out-of-State Trip EVER: Keokuk Iowa, seeing Winter Quarters Temple

I promised I talk about the biggest trip we have done this summer. Before we went to Nauvoo, we had to drive all the way to Lincoln all day. But we kept on driving and driving. Until we made it to out destination to stop at hotels on the way to Nauvoo, we stopped in Keokuk, Iowa. We were mostly doing a church history tour. Where we hear the story about the pioneers and the LDS prophet Joseph Smith. And we were also doing my sister Teach's scripture challenge. By giving Book of Mormon books to people that treated us very nicely. I talk about those in other posts.

We went to see a special temple in Keokuk called the Winter Quarters temple. We never got to do baptisms for the dead there, because the temple was closed on a Sunday, so we got to see the cemetery of Winter Quarters. Some of us were really sad to hear that the pioneers died in the harsh winters in Keokuk. A lot of these pioneers died at young age when they had to brave through the harsh storms. It almost made me cry to see all the names of the pioneers that died in the Winter Quarters. So after we toured the cemetery we drove all the rest of the way to our destination through the country. We'll be doing more Church History tours in other states, especially Nauvoo. The Winter Quarters temple was fun to visit. 

Owl City Concert

I'm not going to talk about our trip to Nauvoo yet. It'll take a while to talk about that. Right now I'm going to talk about the most amazing thing that's ever happened. It's like what my sisters Princess and Teach guest-blogged last year, when they got to go to the Taylor Swift concert. Teach and I went to a concert downtown in Salt Lake City. This concert we went was played by my favorite famous band...OWL CITY!

I've been dying to see an Owl City concert in my life. Teach and I got to buy two tickets before the night of the concert. We dressed up in nice school clothes. I wore my Sonic shirt, because it represents about Owl City's music sounding like video games sounds. The concert was inside a special bar called The Depot. We had to wait in line to get our tickets ripped and then head on in. We followed the crowd to an open floor where the stage was. It took half an hour for it to start. The concert started with a gig by this music artist called Matthew Koma. He played a few songs for half an hour before the actual Owl City concert started. Some of the songs by Matthew Koma were really loud that mine and Teach's eardrums almost exploded into deaf-ears.

Adam Young performing

Anyway, they reset the stage with the instruments for the Owl City band. We all started to cheer when Adam Young came out from backstage and start singing. Teach and I were so thrilled to see Adam Young in person, especially up close. We never got to meet him, (I wish we had) but it was cool to see him up on stage in person. He also said a lot of things, like he said that Salt Lake City, Utah is one of his favorite places to go. Which that made me and Teach feel thrilled to hear that from the most awesome band.

They played lots of songs from multiple albums they made, especially the song called "Fireflies." We started to sing along to new songs from the Midsummer Station album, like Teach loved the song about a high speed chase song called "I'm Coming After You." The lights on the stage were so cool when they changed into lots of different colors. With one guitarist, it showed an affect on him that he used his guitar as a violin, along with a bow. Teach and I thought it was really funny.  What was also funny was when they started playing "Shooting Star", Teach and I felt some raindrops on our heads. We both laughed when we felt it.

I know almost all of the Owl City songs, since I've been hearing them a lot. Every time a song starts playing, Teach asked me what song it was, and then I tell her. We loved singing along to the songs that they played on stage. The concert lasted from 8:30 to 10:00. After the concert was over, we were both so happy that we had a lot of fun seeing the Owl City concert and seeing Adam Young up close. Teach and I got some Matthew Koma merchandises, and then we were on our way home to get some sleep. Maybe we'll have some Firefly visions in our sleep, after all, we saw the concert. It was really fun to talk about the most amazing concert that I've ever been to all my life.

Everyone's Favorite Famous Music Artist/Band

You may have mentioned before that I talked about everybody in the family. I really love to say in case you missed it that I'm going to put one music video of everyone's favorite famous music artist/band. Just for a quick post. Enjoy with:

My Dad's favorite band called KISS





My Mom's favorite Boy Scout song called Boy Scout Rap

My elder sister Bossy's and brother-in-law Gamer's favorite band called Train. 

My elder brother Gym Rat's favorite band called Mayday Parade.

My elder sister, Drama Queen's favorite band called Bon Jovi.

My elder sister, Teach's favorite band called OK
Go.

My favorite band/music artist mostly, besides One Direction Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber is Owl City.



  My younger sister, Princess's favorite band called One Direction.



Same goes for my other younger sister, Prima Donna that her favorite band is One Direction too.

 

My younger sister's favorite music artist, Taylor Swift

 

My younger brother, Sport's favorite band is kind of One Direction, just like Princess and Prima Donna. That's okay, a band or music artist can be everyone's favorite.



My younger sister, Scout's favorite is Taylor Swift, just like Crafty's isM

 

 My younger brother, Curly's favorite music artist, Justin Bieber.



 And my younger sister, Baby Doll's favorite band called Fun.





I hope you all enjoyed this post. I thought it would be fun to see on one post to show everyone who is their favorite music artist/band, besides doing them on separate posts. If you like any of these videos, then that's great. Maybe next time, I'll talk about a time when I went to Nauvoo for this summer.