Another Baptism & Kirtland, Ohio

I'm going all the way back to the beginning of March when we made a weekend trip out to Ohio and West Virginia for my sister in laws baptism. 

Of course we have to see everything there is to see in an area when we travel, so we flew out a few days early into Columbus, Ohio. We rented a car and took off to see the church history sites in the area. 

This beautiful frozen river was where one person wanted to be the first person baptized in the new year and so they cracked through the ice and on January1st, he was baptized (I cant remember his name). Can you imagine?!

 The Newell K. Whitney store. 

Joseph Smith lived here for a time and also established the School of the Prophets here in one of the upper rooms, as seen below. 

This cute yellow house was the Whitney home. 

Just down the street is the Kirtland Temple. It is now owned by the Community of Christ church and unfortunately we were there on a day that it was closed. The early Latter-day Saints sacrificed a lot for this special temple. It was the first one built!

We loved driving through Amish country and seeing horse drawn carts sharing the road. I couldn't imagine living like that!

We also visited the John Johnson home where the Johnson family housed Joseph Smith and his family from 1831 to 1832. Joseph received many revelations here and also serious oppression. 

After our sightseeing, we drove to Charleston, WV where my brother and his family are living while he goes to pharmacy school there. They took us around to see the sites such as the Capitol area, the history of WV museum, and we ate some super yummy local pizza.

And we took a picture of my brother in front of his pharmacy school....where he will spend pretty much the next 4 years of his life at. 

While all those things were very cool to see, the absolute highlight of the trip was being able to be a part of my sister in laws baptism. 

She originally became interested in the church while my mom was taking the discussions back in October/November and after my mom announced that she was going to be baptized, I got a text message from Jessica asking me how she can learn more about the church and maybe even become baptized. I couldn't just text her back with those kinda questions!!! So I called and we talked for awhile about the church, her feelings, etc. She started taking the discussions, and it wasn't long before she wanted to be baptized but wasn't sure about the timing of it all since they had just decided to move to WV  several months earlier than expected. So she held off until they moved, got settled in and then she started the discussions back up again after. There were never so many prayers of hope said by us during that limbo time! Luckily, the ward there is awesome and full of students their age.

One person in particular, Maria, has become good friends with Jessica and took her under her wing, so to speak.  She is pictured below. We feel as if she was an absolute answer to our prayers!  We prayed that someone could befriend them and make the whole transition into a new state, new religion, new culture so much easier... and we think she was our answer!

Jessica's baptism was beautiful and the spirit was felt so strongly there. Jessica is such a special person with a sweet heart. She is determined and is doing awesome in the church! She is a primary teacher and I know she must be fabulous at it!

Patyon, Jessica, and Chad (my brother). Chad is super supportive and even plays basketball with the elders every Saturday morning.

The Sims family with their favorite Elders. 

It still blows my mind that I now have family to share with in this exciting work! We just feel so very blessed and are so grateful for the wonderful opportunity to be a part of such special baptisms.  

Chad and Jessica were so kind to let us stay in their home and it was sad to say goodbye. But we had a snowstorm riding our tails and a 3 hour drive to the airport so we had to boogie out of there after church on Sunday. 

The next day before our flight, we stopped by to see my BYU room mate, Brittany. It was SO awesome to see her, her two precious little girls, and chat like old times. Love ya Britt!

And then we went home to our sweet kiddos who were being watched by awesome Aunt Caryn. What would we ever do without her?!