A Most Sacred Day - April 19, 2023

April 19th was a glorious day!  Probably my most favorite day in our mission.  It was a day spent absorbing the Spirit as it testified, over and over, of Jesus Christ and the work of Salvation and Exaltation.  We had the most wonderful opportunity to spend the day in Palmyra with our entire zone and the Syracuse and Owego Zones.  We began our day picking up our darling Sisters Taylor and Erickson and hit the road.  For part of the road trip, we listened to Sheri Dew’s talk, “Prophets Can See Around Corners”.  The Sisters had not heard it and we love it, so we wanted to share with them.  We arrived at the temple, grabbed Piper Gentry so she could let us into the Stake Center so Sister Taylor and Elder Buck could practice their special musical number for Zone Conference.  By 10:10 we headed back to the temple to get ready to do an endowment session. (A few weeks ago, President and Sister Gentry had the distinct impression that every missionary needed to be in the temple and experience the adjustments made to the endowment. So they set the wheels in motion and this was the day for our zone).

We had several family names that we handed out to missionaries who didn’t have names to do.  We went in, changed and went into the endowment room.  The feeling that came over me as I looked at our most beautiful young missionaries was overwhelming to say the least.  We filled the room and the Spirit filled the room as well.  The most incredible part was the prayer circle.  All but three stood in the prayer circle.  There were 44 of us and the Spirit was so intense that all I could do was cry.  The area where the altar is located is a raised portion of the floor-one step up and the there is a banister around it with ramps sloping up on the sides.  The circle went to the walls, down the ramps on both sides, and down the aisle.  It was completely unbelievable to see and experience.  Afterwards, all of us filed into the Celestial Room, to be greeted by President and Sister Gentry-it was sweet.  (By the way, President and Sister Gentry attended all six endowment session plus one with all the Stake Presidents on Saturday, so a total of seven endowments in 7 days.) 

After our time in the temple, we headed back to the Stake Center for a Mark’s pizza lunch with salad and cookies.  We scarfed the food and went to the chapel for two hours of Zone Conference.  Sister Taylor’s song was spectacular, and Elder Buck played from the hymn book but you would never know it-it was a beautiful arrangement all out of his head.  She sang, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” and it was another tear jerker.  I love this young woman so much.  I do not know how I will say goodbye to her in three weeks. (She goes home)

And then it was our turn to go to the Sacred Grove.  We had a quick tour through the two Smith homes and then had a devotional at the amphitheater in the grove.  We read the proclamation on the Restoration, Sister Depoe bore her testimony, and we all sang “Praise to the Man”.  The missionaries were then allowed to have some alone time in the Sacred Grove to do whatever they felt they wanted to do.  Some wandered, some read their scriptures, some wrote in their journals, some prayed.  It was amazing, as we wandered, to see them off in thought.  We love these missionaries.

We headed home but stopped at Chick Fil A on the thruway for dinner.  Interesting enough, we were there and then almost our whole zone, including President and Sister Gentry and Piper showed up.  We got our food, jumped in the car, and headed for home.  We dropped the Sisters off at about 8:30 and came home.  What a blessing today has been.  A day that I will never forget.  We are so blessed to be serving here!  This place!  This place where the Restoration of all things began.  What other mission can have their Zone Conferences where the Prophet Joseph saw God the Father, and Jesus Christ, His Son.  None.  But we had that chance and thanks to President and Sister Gentry, who live by the Spirit and receive revelation for us, we were blessed beyond measure with this experience.  

On Thursday, our sweet brother, Wayne Palmer returned to heaven on the 20th.  He married Mike's sister, Susan, when Mike was just 14 years old.  We feel so blessed to have had him in our lives.  We are sad that we couldn't be there for his funeral but look forward to being able to watch it on Zoom.  He was a good guy! He will be missed

The rest of our week was filled with our Book of Mormon class, serving at the Pantry, and other fun things.  We love our drives around the area.

We actually had a Ward cleaning party and we served breakfast to everyone who came (after the work was done).  Our church has not been cleaned for a very long time.  It was pretty gross to say the least.  The Sisters kept yelling, "Sister Jolley, there's another spider" and brave me came to squish the bugs.  We had about 26 people show up. Everyone loved breakfast and ate and ate!

After breakfast, we changed clothes real quick and headed out to our Stake Center for a baptism.  The Hamilton Sisters had been teaching to young children, one 9 or 10 and one 12.  It was their baptism. It was awesome and we are so glad that we could be there to support them and our Sisters.

That afternoon, we took a random drive to a little place called Camden.  It was pouring rain and we ducked into a little pizza place called Avicolli's.  We have been told over and over to try it.  As we drove into town, we saw this cool wall art.  There's lots of wall art all around these parts.

We had two slices that we shared and we tried their garlic knots.  We can't get over how people in New York only eat cheese pizza and then they buy wings to go with it. We like stuff on our pizza.  We were lucky to get stuff this time around.  Some people order mushrooms and nothing else on their pizza-I mean I like mushrooms with my meat pizza-but not just mushrooms.  Some order just broccoli on it.  Gross.  Okay, I shouldn't say that!  I haven't tried broccoli pizza and for your information-I probably never will.  I am a pepperoni, sausage, and bacon kind of girl!  But! That chicken, bacon ranch pizza is to die for.

Sunday was our ward potluck which is always fun for our members.  They love spending an hour after church just eating and visiting.  And the fourth week is our Stake Single Adult potluck and fireside.  So two potlucks in one day?  Not always my favorite but it was great.  Mike and I were the fireside on this particular day. We taught about the names of Jesus.  Everyone took turns reading The Living Christ and we listed all His names and characteristics on the board.  Everyone seemed to love the evening.

Sorry, this post is late!  Time got away from me.  We hope you are all happy and well.  We love you!  Thank you for your support of us.  Thank you for your prayers. We love being missionaries and we especially love our Heavenly Father and our Savior.  They are so very good!