Visiting San Bernardino!

Right after Christmas, we took a trip to California to visit Susanna's mission. She served in the California San Bernardino mission. It was a great trip and I loved meeting the people she served. Our first stop was in Victorville where we met her friend Robert.

We drove to San Bernardino and met her mission president and his wife later that evening.

The next day, we drove to Newport Beach and met David's family at the beach. It was pretty chilly so we didn't last long but we drove a few minutes to some tide pools which were more successful.

Afterwards, we went to a reptile zoo which had lots of interesting reptiles and smells and seemed a little overpriced. David paid for a snake encounter.

On Wednesday, we met Susanna's friend Laura and a few of her children. Laura told us about her Christmas tree. She had no money for Christmas but her children wanted a tree, so she tried to find one for them. She went to Walmart and couldn't find anything so she came home discouraged. Then later, she went outside and a very tall evergreen tree had shed some branches that were still living so she put them together to make a tree for her kids. It was her little Christmas miracle. You can see the tree in the background.

After visiting Laura, we drove to Christy's house. Christy is just 15 and was baptized 2 days before Susanna came home. She seems really well integrated into her new ward.

After Christy's house, we visited the first McDonald's store ever, then we drove by the Redlands temple. I really wanted to go in the temple and do a session but we had some cold symptoms that week so we couldn't.

The next two days we spent visiting Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park which really deserves its own post.

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Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River. This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize. This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night. It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania. However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet. I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...

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Hansen Family Plot in the Provo Cemetery

On Memorial Day this year, our family went to the Provo Cemetery, as we do almost every year. We spent some time at the Hansen Family plot which contains the grave of my 2nd great-grandparents, Peter and Mary Hansen. They both emigrated from Denmark with their spouses to Utah. My grandfather lost his first wife Ane to cholera on the plains outside of St. Joseph, Missouri, along with three of his little boys within a very short time--about one month. It's a sad story but it's also one of admirable resilience. He brought his one surviving son, Jorgen, to Utah. He married his second wife Maren (Anglicized to Mary) some 9 years later in Utah She had been married before but lost her first husband at an unknown date. I wish I knew more about her but she left very few records, although I could do more research! Peter and Maren had 6 more children together. The youngest two were twins, Enoch and Ephraim. Ephraim is my great-grandfather and is buried in California. He is the father of ...

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