Palmyra Youth Conference

This weekend my husband and I participated in one of the most unique experiences in our lives. We were asked by our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormon church) to serve for 4 days as branch leaders for our Church's Youth Conference. This particular conference consisted of all of the youth aged 14-18 from our local geographical area (called Stakes within the church. Smaller divisions and actual congregations are called Wards). In this case, there were nearly 200 youth broken into 14 "branches." Dan and I were branch leaders to one such group.

We went to Palmyra, NY where the church was restored by Joseph Smith, and toured the historic church sites that were there. It was an amazing experience and my testimony of Joseph Smith and truthfulness of the gospel was strengthened as I was able to spend some time at these sites.

Here are some of the pictures of our trip:

On our way up to Palmyra, we stopped in Harmony, PA where the
Aaronic Priesthood was restored to the earth.

It was pouring rain in Harmony, PA. These are
3 of the girls in our branch.

Some of my favorite girls at Youth Conference

On Thursday we went to Seneca Lake State Park where the kids swam
and played games. I was the activities chairman and was in charge of all
the games up at Youth Conference. The "day at the Lake" was the
big activity day and I was relieved when it was over.

3 years of being married and still in love!

Service Project day! The girls spent more time posing
for pictures than they did doing the service project.

This is the E.B. Grandin Printing Press, where
the Book of Mormon was printed. It was amazing
to see how much work it took to print the first
5,000 copies of this sacred set of scripture. It increased my
testimony of how true this book really is!

The Huron Branch - best branch at the conference (and I really mean that).
They were such respectful kids, something that is rare these days.

200 plus kids in our stake

This is the log home Joseph Smith and his family were
living in at the time Joseph had the First Vision.

The Sacred Grove was the place where Joseph Smith
saw God and Jesus Christ in response to a question about
which church to join (known as the First Vision).

The Sacred Grove was such a peaceful, holy place.
After being there makes it difficult to ever doubt that
Joseph Smith saw what he said he saw.

I thought this Christus was beautiful. It is the only Christus that
has the Sacred Grove as the background. This was located in
the visitor's center at the Hill Cumorah.

The Angel Moroni told Joseph Smith about the Golden Plates that
needed to be translated, which later became the Book of Mormon.
These were found in the Hill Cumorah.

The Angel Moroni monument found at the top of the Hill Cumorah