End of a Beautiful Day - 30 Oct. 2010

 While driving home from the service project at 6 pm I looked over at a field and saw this picture.  I asked Coleman to turn around so we could capture it on camera.  He suggested including the tractor and trailer which really made it perfect.  Look at the trees that appear to be on fire.  It is just beautiful in this part of God's vineyard.  We just can't seem to be tired of the beauty.

 Before we reached home we had taken several pictures and this is another one.

After we got home and Coleman went out to feed the deer he took this shot.  We are so grateful for our little camera.  It brings us much happiness.

Saturday Service Project - 30 October 2010

 Penfield missionaries, Elder Harris with Lissa Cotter (above) and Elder Elrey with Elder McVea (below), invited us to help paint Lissa's home who is their investigator.  Penfield is a suburb of Rochester, NY.

After being asked if the paint was dry enough for the second coat, Elder McVea said,  "Nope, it's not dried yet."

Sister Holm & Sister Brent can paint nearly as well as they can teach the gospel.

Sister McVea at work, what more can I say.

Friends in the Office

 Left to Right:  Sister Brinkerhoff, Pleasant Grove, UT the President's Secretary, Elder & Sister McVea, Elder Larry and LaDean Yost who trained dad and I and are from Washington State, and Sister Debbie Ryals from South Carolina, the financial secretary.  Taken 29 October 2010.  The Yosts came into the office for a visit because our mail lady was having a birthday.  Sister Yost before leaving the office had promised Jennifer a cake carrot for her birthday.  Well, she held to her promise and she and Elder Yost returned to the office for Friday to be there when Jennifer brought the mail.  Lots of pictures were taken because every one who came to the office that day got a piece of delicious carrot cake.  Since you know us we decided to include the picture taken with us.  She is the reason we have many happy missionaries, because she delivers their mail to the office and then I forward it to the missionaries.

Bob and Eileen Haven

Eileen was born and lived in the John Young Home until she was 7 years old.  Then she moved across the street to the BIG John Young Home.  For some reason no one can tell us why John Young's Home was separated, making two homes which are right across the street from each other.  When  Bob and Eileen Haven were married they lived in the small John Young home where we live now.  We thought it would be nice to visit with them and learn some of the history.  The same Sunday we found the cemetery is the day we stopped in to visit the Haven's.  The cemetery is a block from their home.

The John Young Home is seen from the Haven's backyard.  They planned it that way when they built their home on the hill over looking the home Eileen was raised in.  The white house  and red barn in the background  is her former home.

This is one of the walls in their home of old tools Eileen has collected from the barn in her childhood and along the way.  She tested Coleman on his knowledge of the tools and he passed.

Tomlinson's Corners Cemetery

 Tomlinson's Corners Cemetery is 1 mile south of John Young's Home (where we live) and has historical significance.  After church one Sunday we stopped by to see if we could find this cemetery and by the pictures you can tell we did.  If you look close you can see our white house in the background. 

 Sister McVea is standing next to Miriam Young's grave, Brigham Young's first wife who died at the age of 26 and was buried here.  The original tomb stone has been replaced with this nice one.

President Spencer W. Kimball's great grandfather, Solomon F Kimball, is buried in this cemetery also.

Mark's Pizzeria

 Mark's Pizzeria was one of our family's favorite places to eat when we served in Hill Cumorah Pageant.  I was craving pizza so we stopped by one night for our date in October 2010.  This pizza place is right across the street from the building below,  "Book of Mormon Historical Publication Site" formerly known as "The Grandin Building."  The first 5000 copies of Book of Mormon were published here.

Scenery within a mile of where we live

Just thought you folks might enjoy seeing some of the beauty of New England's fall colors.  These were taken Saturday October 23rd by Elder McVea while being driven around by Sister McVea.  We had a wonderful P-Day.

Tomlinson Inn

 Maple Tree Leaves.

 Maple Tree in front of a grove of Black Walnut trees.

 One of the many barns in the area.

 Another Barn.  Nice Chevy Avalanche Too!!!!

Just a Drive Way with good Color.

Trainers

Back Row:  Elder and Sister McVea, Sister Ryals & Brinkeroff, twin brother & Mom, Dad Christensen
Middle Row:  Sister and Elder Yost (our trainers)
Front Row:  Former Elder Christensen who trained Sister Yost to be referral secretary
Brother Tyson Christensen was a missionary who was released 2 weeks ago and returned with his parents and his twin brother who served in New Hampshire and they both were released on the same day.  Tyson was the missionary who trained Sister Yost a year ago.  The tradition is when you train someone the elders give them a tie which he gave Sister Yost.  She in turn gave me the tie since she trained me.  All of our names are on the tie at this point.  Everyone else is the office staff.

 The tie ceremony with Sister Yost and I where it is now mine to give to whoever I train in the future.

Most Wednesday evenings we spend at the Hill Cumorah Visitor Center with all the site missionaries for a Devotional.  Our family should remember this statue of Christ.  A senior missionary, Elder Hales is a photography and he took our picture and shared with us how at night time you can sit on the benches in this room and at the perfect angle have the Savior reflect off all the windows.  The Saviors arms are stretched out encircling you.  What a feeling came into the room when we saw the next picture.

I'm a Mormon

Elder and Sister McVea at the Hill Cumorah Visitor Center.

There are 9 viewing areas in the US that have been selected for the new "I'm a Mormon" commercial adds.  These adds are shown on TV and heard on Radio.  As some of you may recall Elder Nelson refered to such adds in priesthood session of the October 2010 Priesthood.  A young man named Zach from Baton Rouge Louisiana was converted through exposure to this web site. 

Two of the pilot areas are Rochester New York and Baton Rouge Louisiana.  Tonight, at the Rochester Stake adult session of stake conference,  members of the stake were encouraged to set up a profile through the Mormon.org web site.  I plan to do that tomorrow.  We were also encouraged to post a link to mormon.org on our own personal websites, such as face book, twitter, or blogs.  So here is my attempt at being obedient.    http://mormon.org/people/find/

Tomlinson Inn

The Tomlinson Inn is about a half mile south from the John Young Home (Where we now live)

The following story is how Brigham Young (and others) join the Church.  The following is excerpts  from an article titled, "Living in a Chapter of History," by Marjorie H. Rice, Ensign, Oct 2007, 56-61.   The Rices lived in the Tomlinson Inn for a time while her husband served as President of the Palmyra Temple.

Phineas Young Reads the Book of Mormon

After purchasing the Book of Mormon from Samuel Smith at the Tomlinson Inn, Phineas began to feel that Samuel had been deceived. He told his wife, “I have got a book here, called the Book of Mormon, and it is said to be a revelation, and I wish to read it and make myself acquainted with its errors, so that I can expose them to the world.”7 He set aside all other business and read the book within a week; then he read it again the following week. He didn’t find the anticipated errors but instead felt a conviction the book was true doctrine. The following Sunday, before his congregation, he found himself quoting scripture from the Book of Mormon and, under inspiration of the Spirit, he bore a powerful testimony of its truth.

Phineas, believing this book to be an answer to his family’s searching and prayers, passed the book on to his father. John Young read it and declared that it was “the greatest work and the clearest of error of anything he had ever seen, the Bible not excepted.”8 Phineas then passed the book on to his sister, Fanny, who also declared it a revelation. Fanny passed it on to Brigham, and the book was later given to Heber Kimball.9

But Brigham had become so disillusioned with organized religion that he was very cautious. He studied and pondered the book for many months. By May 1831 the branches of the Church in New York had gathered to Kirtland, Ohio, without the Young family ever meeting another member of the Church.

From Seekers to Believers

In the autumn of 1831, five missionaries from the branch in Columbia, Pennsylvania, knocked at the door of Phineas Young’s home and asked if they could hold a meeting there to preach the restored gospel. Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball attended the gathering, and they were touched by the Spirit. They “received the word gladly,” and testified of its divinity.10

Longing to mingle with the Saints, Heber C. Kimball hitched his horses to his sleigh in the bitter cold of January 1832, and he, Brigham and Miriam Young, and Phineas and Clarissa Young took a freezing, 125-mile sleigh ride to visit the branch in Columbia, Pennsylvania. Apparently, Vilate Kimball stayed at home and cared for all the children so the other wives could go.

Brigham later recalled, “We arrived at the place where there was a small Branch of the Church; we conversed with them, attended their meetings and heard them preach, and after staying about one week we returned home, being still more convinced of the truth of the work.”12

Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball Are Baptized

On April 15, 1832,14 a cold and snowy day, Eleazar Miller, one of those five elders from Pennsylvania, baptized Brigham Young in his own mill stream and ordained him an elder, according to Brigham, “before my clothes were dry on my back.”15 His friend Heber C. Kimball was baptized the following day, and their wives, Miriam and Vilate, were baptized within a few weeks.

Before Brigham joined the Church, he described himself as rather slow of speech. But with his acceptance of the restored gospel the Lord made “weak things become strong unto [him]” (see Ether 12:27). Just one week after his baptism, Brigham preached his first sermon and spoke for more than an hour. He later said, “I wanted to thunder, and roar out the gospel to the nations. It burned in my bones like fire pent up. … Nothing would satisfy me but to cry abroad in the world what the Lord is doing in the latter days.”16

8. Manuscript History of Brigham Young, xix.

9. Some writers point out that the copy of the Book of Mormon read by Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball could have been one Samuel Smith had placed in June 1830 with Mrs. John P. Greene, Brigham Young’s sister Rhoda, who also lived in Mendon.

10. The Life of Heber C. Kimball, 19.

12. Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 2.

14. Brigham Young, “Remarks,” Deseret News, Apr. 2, 1862, 1.

15. Manuscript History of Brigham Young, 3.

16. Brigham Young, Deseret News Weekly, Aug. 24, 1854, 1.

Scenery near by

A farm near our home.  A great place to take pictures (Lacey and Sarah). There are more just like it.

Green Combine cutting soybeans.  Coming home from Bishop Schutz's home following General Conference we saw this and Coleman just had to pull over and get a picture.  So many things here remind him of his youth.  What it reminded me, Valli, of was a talk given in Sacrament Mtg. when I was a teenager.  The speaker had a toy green combine on the pulpit during his entire talk.  As he concluded his talk on missionary work he told us that whenever we saw a green tractor like the one sitting on the pulpit he wanted us to be reminded to do missionary work.  It worked because  every time I see a green tractor or combine I think, "MISSIONARY WORK!"

30 Sept. 2010, Thursday - A Fairport, NY Sunset, just beautiful!

John Young's Home & Property

Listed below are similarities to where I, Elder McVea, was raised in Louisiana.
1. There are soy bean fields around the house. .  I farmed soy beans as a youth.
2.  There is a two story red barn on the property where cows were milked many years ago. . . I milked cows as a youth in a similar barn.
3.  The home was built with hand cut timbers & held together with wooden pegs. . . So was the home I was raised in.
4.  There is a large yard with plenty of grass to cut. . . Just as it was in my youth. (Thankfully, I don't have to cut it.)
5.  We saw seven deer with in a 100 yards of the house last night. . . There are many deer in the woods where I grew up as well.
6.  The home is white with a gray front porch with a screen door . . . Just as our home on Sunway was.
7.  There is a creek that runs on the edge of the property. . . similar to Sunway.  I remember many happy days on Foster Creek.
8.  The Young home is about 8 miles out of town. . . as was Sunway from Zachary, LA.
 I sometimes wonder when I will wake up from this dream of tender mercies we are experiencing here in the New York Rochester Mission.

House (far left)         Garage (Middle)            Barn

Another shot of the Barn with soy bean field in back where deer were seen.

Stewards of the Sacred Grove

Find the animal in the picture which is a daily visitor to this area (taken through a window at the Visitor Center/Log Home & Sacred Grove.)

Sister Christianson, Elder Huffaker, Bob Parrot

Elder Huffaker works for the Facility Management at the Church Historical Sites along with Bob Parrot(not a member) who is the arborist who takes care of all the site trees.

This is one of 82 benches built by Elder Huffaker.  They are placed in the Sacred Grove and the Peter Whitmer Farm.  As a Facility Management Elder, he does not get to meet and teach others of the gospel in the usual manner of a missionary.  Since he is a carpenter by trade he decided he could build benches where people could sit and ponder the restoration and that would be his contribution.  He and his wife will be returning to their home this month, October 2010.  All 82 benches are completed and his goal reached.  Here I sit in a sacred place, grateful for a place to reflect on my testimony.  Thank you Elder Huffacker.

Visit to the Log Cabin

On 21 September 1823, the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith....

...in the Smith Family Log Cabin near Palmyra, New York.  This cabin is on the exact foundation of the original cabin but has been reconstructed as near to the original as possible.

 On 21 September 2010, 187 years later to the day Elder & Sister McVea stood in this very room with 6 new other missionaries and Pres. and Sister Christianson and all bore testimony of the restoration.  It was a powerful moment for us.