Onto to Church Historical Sites

On Wednesday, the 8th of May we prepared to leave New Jersey and the fantastic area that is New York!!! Looking back on it all now it was just amazing to believe that we had a huge camper-van in the middle of a busy busy city with 6 children!  That morning we had the best breakfast burrito ever that I made Michael go back and buy 4 more.  I was constantly amazed at Jason's driving ability in such a big vehicle especially in busy areas.  Just trying to get out of New Jersey was crazy but he seemed to cope so well on the main freeways and highways.

We traveled onto Susquehanna County Pennsylvania to check out the place where the Aaronic Priesthood was restored to Joseph Smith in 1830.  This area had a marked out home of Emma and Joseph Smith and a cemetery with the markings of one of their children who had died.  This was very surreal for me that things I had heard throughout my life studying church history and here we were visiting the areas ourselves.  Unfortunately the weather was terrible so we couldn't stay too long but Jason was determined to visit the Susquehanna River!  So he traipsed through the mud and woods to find the markings that state where the priesthood blessing had been given.  Compared to all the other church areas there was hardly any historical buildings or information here but as I write this blog nearly 2 years later the church is currently building a visitors center and recreate a model of the Smiths home, which I believe will be very helpful to feel the spirit and capture the essence of this historical place.

That night we went to Bingham New York and had a real American diner meal at a place called - The Spot Diner.  It looked  really really dingy and very old fashioned but the prices for the food were really cheap and the service was so lovely just like the ladies in some of the American movies!!! We had a lovely time and the food was pretty good too! Then later that night we drove on a little more to get closer to some places to stop the next day and in a place called Auburn New York, we had our first and only prang in the big car!  Jason was trying to reverse as the car navigator sent us the wrong way and then we hit the back of the van.  Luckily it didn't cost too much to fix but it was still a pain that he had just the one scrape!