Wednesday morning we decided to travel down/up to Niagara Falls since Tom had never been there and we figured, “Why not?!”  I’d forgotten my passport so we were only able to visit the American side, but it was still pretty amazing!  We got to our hotel late the night before, so we ended up going to the Falls in the morning.  It was so stormy, windy, rainy, and cold!  We bought ponchos at the gift shop after having a pretty amazing breakfast sandwich from the little cafe (it wasn’t actually that great haha!), and thankfully we had our umbrella so it wasn’t too miserable.  In fact, the storm seemed to make most tourists stay away so we pretty much had the Falls to ourselves!  It was so pretty!  There were some parts that were a little intense, where you’re standing pretty much on top of the Falls, but it was so incredibly beautiful!  Nature is so cool!

Our next stop on Wednesday morning, after driving a few hours from Niagara Falls in New York, was the Morley Farm in Kirtland, Ohio.  This wasn’t somewhere we planned on stopping, but we saw it from the road as we were driving by and decided to stop!  It was one of the first places where the Prophet Joseph and Emma stayed when they came to Kirtland, and kind of a crossroads stop on the trail that missionaries would take as they traveled across the states.  Unfortunately the visitors center was closed, so we were only able to take some pictures from the outside.  The trees and land were so pretty!  Tom received a call from our realtor while we were there, which was pretty urgent, but we still managed to sneak in a pic together!  He also decided to try something new with his fashion, throwing it back to the 80’s… I think he looks pretty dang good! 🙂

Our second stop on Wednesday was the little original town of Kirtland where many of the saints lived and did business.  We began our visit by watching an introductory video, which showed the history of the town and the people who lived there, particularly Newel K. Whitney and his wife, Anne.  They played a big role in the growth of the Church in Kirtland, and it was cool to watch the video (which again made me emotional) and then go and actually see the sites.  We saw the river where many of the saints in Kirtland were baptized, an old tannery where saints worked, the N.K. Whitney store (which is on the original site and 80% original), the Whitney home (where Joseph and Emma stayed and she gave birth to Joseph the third), the ashery, the saw mill, and the tavern.  It was so cool to walk the streets and think about the faith of the saints as they lived there and helped build the church, and it was turning out to be a really lovely day!

We cut our tour on the Church’s Kirtland site a little short because we wanted to get over to the Kirtland Temple before they closed.  The Kirtland Temple is owned by the Community of Christ Church, and the last tour was scheduled for 4:00.  We got there at 4:05 and unfortunately the woman at the visitors’ center said they were closed.  We decided to walk around the grounds and get some pictures outside, and then the most amazing thing happened!

As we were walking around taking pictures, a man came up and asked where we were from.  Tom mentioned we were moving him back to Utah as we’d just gotten married, and the man asked if we’d like a tour.  He is a painter working on the temple and had a key, so he said he’d give us a private tour.  It was AWESOME!  He took us down to the basement, up to the bell tower in the very top of the temple, and showed us things that people don’t normally see on the tour.  He even showed us a place where they believe Hyrum Smith carved his initials in a beam in the bell tower, and then he showed us where we could get a small piece of glass from the original windows!  It was so awesome and such a wonderful blessing that this man was able to give us such a wonderful tour!  It started raining really hard as we left, so we all had to rush off, but thankfully we still managed to get a picture with our awesome tour guide, Tom Kimball!  What a blessing it was that we met him and we hope to somehow, someday cross paths with him again in the future and thank him for his kindness!

Our last stop of the day was the Johnson home, which is where the Prophet Joseph received more Doctrine & Covenant revelations than anywhere else.  It was POURING rain on our drive out there and during our time there, but thankfully they were open and the tour was mostly indoors!  We did get pretty soaked though, which you can see in the pictures!  When we arrived, we met with the senior missionary couple and the husband showed us around.  He was really sweet and talked a lot about church history.  He gave us the history of the home, which was a very upscale home for its day with lots of expensive features (like the staining on the doors).  He also told us about the Prophet Joseph’s experience in the Johnson home, which was pretty humbling.  This was where the Prophet was dragged out in front of his family and tarred and feathered, and it just sickened me to think of such a thing.  I’ve always had a very strong testimony of the Prophet Joseph and I’ve recognized for a long time just how strong he was in sticking by his calling to start the Church, even though he faced such insanely difficult persecution.  My experience in visiting the Johnson home and hearing that story just confirmed that… It would have been so easy for the prophet to just give up and say it wasn’t worth it, but he didn’t.  And because he didn’t, we have the blessings we do.  🙂

After we left Ohio, we began one of the longest stretches of our journey – heading to Carthage.  It’s about nine hours away and we were able to get a few hours in, which was nice and made for a less painful drive the next day!  It was still crazy rainy and stormy, which slowed us down a bit.  These are some pics of what we’re sure was beautiful scenery, had it not been for the crazy pounding rain!

Along the drive we stopped at a place called a service station (like a really nice rest stop) for dinner.  (We were going to go to a pizza place, but we missed the turn because we were having a funny conversation.)  All that was open at the service station was Burger King, so that’s what we had for our glamorous road trip dinner!  We then continued to the drive and made it to Indiana without incident!  There was a little mix-up with the hotel when we arrived… I had been booking them the day of, depending on where we were and how far we had driven each day, and somehow I accidentally booked our hotel we needed for that night for April 30th!  Thankfully they still had a room available (after a brief room switch where the key didn’t work) and it was nice to get some rest after spending so much time in the car!