Church History Sites 2: Kirtland, Ohio

Kirtland was a lot of fun.  The church has restored a lot of Kirtland to what it was in the 1830s.  You can see the saw mill, school house, Newel K. Whitney store and home, The Johnson Inn, etc...

We took a tour lead by two sister missionaries.  The weather was perfect, and the first warm, sunny day they'd had all year.

The Newel K. Whitney Store was one of my favorite places to visit.  Joseph Smith and his family actually lived upstairs above the store for a short period.

This is a very sacred place where amazing revelations were received.  The Word of Wisdom was received in this home!

 The School of the Prophets met in this room:

Part of the tour brought us to the Johnson Inn, which has been turned into a visitors center.  They have a kiosk there where you can search for people that lived in the area during the time the church was there.  I found my ancestors, which was pretty neat :)

And of course the highlight of Kirtland was the temple.  None of the pictures have been edited so they're a bit dark...sorry.  The temple is also such an amazing and sacred place.  It is no longer owned by our church, but we were still able to tour it.  We weren't allowed to take any pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was pretty cool.  The workmanship was pretty awesome too.  The Spirit was so strong during the whole tour.  It was just amazing! 

We were lucky to get a tour with a small group.  If there's too many people in the group they won't take you to the top floor of the temple because it can't hold a lot of weight.  We had so many little "coincidences" during our visit that made everything just perfect, from having the perfect weather, to being somewhere at just the right time, to being allowed to join a smaller group, etc.  We just felt very blessed that we could experience everything and feel the Spirit so strongly.