Kirtland, Ohio

We left our car at the dealership today, so they could try to determine why it had quit suddenly twice yesterday. While they worked on that, we rented a car and visited some Church history sites. Kirtland is actually a lot prettier than it looked in any movie we had seen about it.

The Church has a really nice visitor's center here, also. We saw the Newel K. Whitney store. We learned that even though Joseph and Emma Smith had lived in the store, the Whitneys lived in their own house across the street from the store. We visited a sawmill and an ashery on the grounds, and went into a representation of the Johnson Inn, where we saw a film about Kirtland. In one of the film segments, the brethren were shown in Hebrew class, and, when the teacher called on Brother Ogden to read, it really was Brother D. Kelly Ogden who read in Hebrew. (Had to mention that because, before teaching at BYU, Brother Ogden had taught Seminary at the high school Sister Sutherland attended ages ago.) We also learned that some of Sister Sutherland's ancestors, Cornelius and Parmelia Lott, had lived in Kirtland when the Prophet Joseph Smith was there.

We toured the Kirtland Temple with a guy from the Community of Christ church (formerly called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). He would not let us take any pictures inside the building, but let us see the first, second,and third floors of the temple. Although the missionaries from our Church always found ways to bear testimony during their presentations, this guy never mentioned more than interesting facts.

The thing that was really surprising was the brief film before the tour. When it described Joseph Smith's first vision in the sacred grove, it only said that Christ appeared to Joseph. It never mentioned that both the Father and the Son appeared. (Even though that is what Joseph himself related.) It's amazing what you actually do say by not saying something.

When we returned to the dealership, the people there told us that they were unable to find anything wrong with our car. This leaves us wondering still why the car quit on us before. (Maybe so we would have a good excuse to see Kirtland? :) )