Kirtland, Ohio Post

So here is my spritual Kirtland, Ohio post. We totally weren't even planning to go here, but it was kind of on our way to Rochester, so we stopped. We got there in the nick of time and got to do part of the tour. It's always good to leave more to see, so you have a reason to go back.

We also had Stake Conference today which means the various congregations from around the city all meet together for 2 hours at the Stake Center. The Stake President told us how he recently visited Kirtland, Ohio. It was cool because we, like, totally knew what he was talking about when he referred to the temple and stuff.

This is the Kirtland Temple. It was the first temple built by the Saints. It took them two years and a lot of sacrifice to build. (It is now owned by the Community of Christ which is the RLDS church). Shortly after the temple opened (about 2 years), the Saints moved westward in 1838 to get away from the persecution. Total bummer, but the temple served its purpose and the Saints moved on and built more temples.

This is the front of it. The tour guide told us to be reverent inside, but didn't say anything about reverence outside. We let the kids run around before we went back to the LDS Visitor's Center. It was pretty cool inside. There are 3 floors. The bottom floor is the holy of holies. The second floor looked similar to the first floor, but it was used more for schooling. The third floor was 5 rooms used for schooling and meetings. And I was totally going to find a link for you to see the inside since we couldn't take pictures, but there isn't ANY! Which is weird because they totally had pictures of the inside on the brochure. So I guess you will just have to visit it yourself.

This is back at the LDS Visitor's center. It is the Newel K. Whitney store. The Whitneys were a well-to-do family that became faithful members of the Church.

This is a room above the store that many revelations were received.

This is where they held the School of the Prophets. This is the room that the men would meet and use and smoke their tobacco and Emma Smith basically said, "Enough of the disgustingness!" Then Joseph received the Word of Wisdom revelation and which tells us not to smoke; not to drink alcohol, coffee, or tea; and to be sure to eat stuff that is good for us like whole wheat, fruits, and vegetables. Can you see all the orbs in the picture? My husband says it's just dust, but I think it's little revelations waiting be be received.


This is an old picture of the Whitney's home. We know they were wealthy because it was painted yellow and yellow paint had to be imported. They also had two kitchens, a summer kitchen and winter kitchen. It had something to do with keeping the temperature of the house just right during the different seasons. As you can see in the picture they also had a state-of-the-art side-by-side Jeep stroller which was something most people didn't have until the late 20th century.

These are the toilets at the Visitors Center. They are so clean you could eat off of them, but we didn't. I just let my girls sit on them without a seat cover.


The church really does stuff right, like crown molding on top of the door inside the bathrooms. It's all about attention to detail...

... like blankets in the room where we watched the movie.

It was a great little sightseeing trip. I think the thing that hit me the most was that these people had nice houses for the time period and they were asked to leave everything and travel onward. That must have been a huge deal and they did it anyway. All I have to do is go to church and teach a lesson every now and then. I can deal.