Discoveries

Brother Baxter, an archaeologist, and his wife visited our staff meeting this week to give a very interesting presentation. In the 1982, the LDS Church Historical Department joined forces with BYU's Religious Studies Center to do an archaeological dig on the Joseph Smith log home site. Brother Baxter, who was working on his Masters degree, was part of that team. He related how they were able to pin point the site of the original log home . The original log home had deteriorated over time, so it was burned to the ground about the time of the Civil War . The  site was plowed over and used for farming until 1982. Today, an exact replica of the log home stands on the original site, and is visited by tens of thousands of people each year. When you stand in the upper bedroom where Joseph Smith slept, you are in the exact air space where the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith on Sept. 21, 1823.

In the process of doing the archaeological work, lots of artifacts were found in the root cellar that was under the Smith's kitchen. Items found were broken dishware from the period, glass, buttons, a gold bead, brass straight pins that Lucy would have used in her textile work, a military button of the period, knives, forks, spoons, and fragments of brick from the fireplace and chimney. These artifacts are in Salt Lake in safe storage. Brother Baxter brought out a few of them to show us.

It was neat to hold these discoveries in my hand

Another exciting discovery was to see the weekly progress in setting up for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It is exciting to find opportunities to invite people we come into contact with to Pageant. A furniture salesman we deal with is excited to go. We try to give out as many Pageant pass along cards as we can. This year is the 75th anniversary of Pageant, and some extra things will be added to the already spectacular event.


The towers for lights, etc., have been put into place, and all the flowers are in full bloom.

We  had a discovery of another kind, a reminder that there is opposition in all things.  We discovered the source of one of our missionary sister's extensive bites on her legs.  A nest of infamous bed bugs was found by Elder Ellis within the box springs of her mattress! The apartment management was great and responded immediately. We spent 7 hours in that apartment on Friday preparing it for the exterminator, while the sisters bagged up every single item of clothing and linens and hauled them off to the laundromat to very washed and dried at very high temperatures. The beds and sofa were discarded in a special garbage dumpster. Our wonderful Assistants to the President hauled off the furniture. I'm sure they felt itchy for days after. We do, every time we think of it.

Here we are, the next day. Our wonderful zone leaders, Elder Stoker and Worsham, are loading their truck with new bedding and sofa for the apartment, which was thoroughly sprayed earlier that day. (The sister missionaries stayed at the mission home two nights.)


To make sure the mattresses are secure in the truck, Elder Ellis (former Scout Master) is reviewing Boy Scout knots with Elder Worsham.  We can see how Scouting helps young men prepare for missions.

Elder Worsham re-learning the sheet bend knot!

Hopefully, there won't be too many more unpleasant discoveries, as we inspect missionary apartments! (and we thought dirty toilets were the worst)
 P.S.: a word of caution to friends and family staying in hotels as they vacation this summer -- check the Internet to see what you can do to protect yourselves against this nasty bug.

To end on a more positive note, we also discovered that our son, Mark, was in the MTC with and served in the same mission (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania), as the young actor whom Elder Ellis met at the Chill and Grill last week in Palmyra --the one who portrays Jesus Christ in the new church Bible videos which can be seen on www.lds.org. It's a small world in the Church!