The Truth Of My Day

  Day 1 of our trip and here I am in New York! We arrived in the morning and went to the Sacred Grove. Why are some secluded woods considered holy and revered? Because this was The Beginning. What happened among some trees in the year 1820 is the reason Joseph endured decades of trials to build a church.  This is the place. This where a teenage boy decided to go into the woods to be alone with God and his faith and his questions. On his family's farm of 100 acres. I wanted to do the same. I told my husband: This is the kind of place you go to hear God call your name. And tell you He has great things in store for you. For our flight to New York we were up in the clouds for most of it. Clouds were below us, and above us. At one point the sun was shining in and the clouds were so bright that I put my sunglasses on. It made me think of Joseph Smith and his "first vision". I've read about it many times. After feeling doomed to destruction first, he called upon God. There w...

  How many times did I get emotional on this 12 day trip? I'm not sure. But my eyes almost leaked twice while in Kirtland.  Once was while I was in the visitor center, which is a short drive from the temple. We went there first. The tour started with a 24 minute movie about what the Saints went through to build the temple there. There was one part where Joseph Smith heard another person speak of their struggles, and he said with such conviction: After much tribulation comes the glory. And it struck me because we first went to Palmyra, and then Independence, then here. Joseph gave everything he had to building this Church up. He was persecuted so severely his entire life. He was a farm boy who was asked by God to lead others in sacred things.  We have it so easy. Like running water, for one thing. And electricity. We have heat all winter long without having to haul or chop any wood. We went to see the Joseph and Emma house, a short walk from the temple. Looking out the win...

  When I write a blog I try to consider who I'm writing it for.  This blog is a deep dive for my friends and family who know what Adam-ondi-Ahman is. The next post will have the details that anyone could appreciate, but this one will only be special to certain people. You know who you are.  I feel deeply blessed that my husband put together a summer trip that started in New York at the Sacred Grove, which is close to Hill Cumorah and other awesome historic sites. It was a terrific launching pad for the lift-off at Adam-ondi-Ahman. It felt like the first part of the trip was a countdown to going to this sacred valley in Missouri.  When is a valley not just a valley? When it's a place I've heard of for decades, and sung about in a Church hymn. We drove for an hour on the Missouri roads surrounded by unending green trees soaking up the July sunshine. We came to a fork in the road, gravel to the right or the left? We went to the right, and we stopped at the first place t...

  Life only gets better. I've been telling myself this for many years. I have arrived. We didn't have time to find and buy a house before our house sold, so we quickly picked an apartment complex to stay at. This is a nice place! The usual applies in that it is close to shopping and has a pool. Yet it still feels secluded, complete with it's own lake. It takes about 3 minutes to drive to Walmart and we pass 4 small lakes along the way. I love Palm Bay!  This place is amazing. It has a club house with a stocked fridge of soda and juice. It has a pool room. It has weird and crazy art all over. It has a nice exercise room. It has a nice business center. It has a very nice top of the line massage chair room available 24 hours a day. It has a tiny playground for little kids. It has an even bigger dog playground. The pool is fabulous. It has it's own car wash for tenants! The volleyball court is like a big sand box for the little one to play in as I watch the fountain in the ...

  Well, what have you been doing for the last 81 days? (and now it is even later than 81 days!) I have already posted an alligator blog, because how do I put my road to Florida into words? Me? I have taken 3 trips from Cedar City in Utah to Palm Bay in Florida. The last time was a road trip with everything we own in the shared space of a 16 foot trailer. So yeah, I'm having a bit of an energy crisis these days. I am just dragging. But what a place to have low energy! I'm not in heaven, I'm in haven. The Haven, to be exact. What a contrast to go from a fixer upper house with a big unfinished yard to a luxury apartment called The Haven. This is new to me. So is the high price, but it will get us through until we find a house to buy. Except everyone wants to move to Palm Bay, so our realtor says there is a bidding war on every house, he has never seen anything like it. The good news is that I would love a bit smaller and quieter city and one that fits the bill has lower prices...