Oh How Lovely was the Morning

After the hustle and bustle of NYC, we were all excited to go upstate to beautiful Palmyra, NY. I must say I am a small town girl at heart and the lush foliage and home town atmosphere was delightful. As we drove from NYC to Palmrya, rain poured down from the sky. We reached our hotel and hurriedly ran inside as the steady beat of the rain pelted the ground. Then we ate a quick dinner and headed to the outdoor Hill Cumorah Pageant. This may seem like a highly illogical thing to do, but I grew up hearing about the miracle of The Hill Cumorah Pageant, and I believe life isn't always about logic. My grandma often told us about her long ago trip to The Hill Cumorah Pageant, and how it began to rain the morning of the pageant. As she voiced her concerns aloud about the rain, a lady from the town spoke up, "Oh don't worry about the rain. I don't know what those Mormons have got, but it always stops raining for the pageant." Grandma said it made her proud to be a Mormon and sure enough that night the rain stopped. Well, we were all ready for our own little miracle, but while we knew it would stop raining when the pageant started, we knew there was a long time of rain until the pageant started. So we took out our umbrellas, and dutifully sat for about an hour and a half as rain ping ponged off them. Shortly before the pageant, we went to the refreshment stand for some popcorn, and there we also picked up some ponchos. We slipped them on and began to munch on our popcorn. My brother looked up at my poncho and shared with me the news that there were actually arm holes in the poncho. And so just after the opening prayer, I took off my poncho in search of the arm holes. I was twisting and turning the poncho, when the actors came on stage, the music began and. . . . . . the rain stopped. Perhaps a highly unlikely thing to happen at that moment, but not when miracles are concerned. I put my poncho on the ground and stayed dry the whole night. That night I was reminded of the beauty that miracles are everywhere. It seems we spend our lives searching for something miraculous, when the truth is tender mercies and blessings are occurring all around us. We only need to open our eyes to see them. This set the tone for the rest of our trip to Palmyra, as we visited places where truly miraculous things happened, things that logic cannot explain.


Here we are before the pageant waiting for the rain to stop.



The beautiful rainless pageant.



The Hill Cumorah pageant was so good, we went a second night. This time there wasn't a rain cloud in sight.



The next day we went to all of the LDS church history sites. It was amazing to walk in the places so important to the restoration of the LDS church, places where the Prophet Joseph Smith walked. Here we are at the Smith Family home.



Then we walked down to their second home and looked out upon their farm.



As we walked back from the Smith family farm, we were able to see a beacon of hope: The Palmyra Temple.



Later, we walked up the path to the Hill Cumorah where the Prophet Joseph Smith Jr. was given the golden plates by the Angel Moroni. Being in these places, gave me the chance to gain a stronger testimony of the events that took place there.



The beautiful promise from The Book of Mormon.



Our family walked, pondered, and felt the love of our Heavenly Father in The Sacred Grove. The minute we walked in we felt an overwhelming feeling of peace. I know that this is truly a miraculous place, a place where the Prophet Joseph Smith saw God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. It is a place of prayer, of power, and of love.



The Sacred Grove left me singing "Oh How Lovely was the Morning"and meaning every word of it, because it is truly a place of peace and miracles.