OHIO - Part 3 (MORLEY FARM, KIRTLAND TEMPLE, JOHNSON HOME, AMISH)

THE MORLEY FARM
We had a little time before the tours started again at the Kirtland Temple, so we headed down the road to visit the Isaac Morley Farm. The church doesn't actually own the land that the house was on, but we took a walk as far as we could through a beautiful path (the original path) that led to Mentor, Ohio.

The couple missionaries told us a crazy little story about Isaac Morley and his wife. They were friendly with some Indians in the area. However, the Chief came to them one day and told them that his wife had seen their fine baby boy and wanted him to be hers. He demanded the baby or else they would massacre everyone.

Never heard this story? Me neither. Well, I'll tell you right now that if I'd been her, EVERYONE WOULD BE MASSACRED! Isaac Morley, however, prayed about it and decided that he was supposed to give their baby to the Indians. WHAT????? They took him to the Chief the next morning. The next day, the Chief brought the baby back and said that his wife felt bad that she now had a baby and Isaac's wife was left without one. We still would have been massacred. I'm just saying.

The view from the Morley farm was absolutely beautiful. The picture seriously doesn't capture any of the beauty that was the Morley Farm.

THE KIRTLAND TEMPLE
The LDS church does not own the Kirtland Temple. The Community of Christ owns it. They have also been called Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as several other names.

Joseph and Emma Smith finally were able to build a house close to the temple. There is a cemetary across the street where Hyrum Smith's first wife, Jerusha, is buried as well as Joseph & Emma's twins and several others from the family.

We started with a video presentation about the history of the church. It was a little boring as Elliot and Stella both fell asleep. However, after the video was done, the curtains opened to reveal a beautiful view of the Kirtland Temple. We walked through the meditation gardens to go to the temple. Their grounds were very green and flowers were very pretty.

The temple is very tall, but narrow and much smaller than we had imagined. The staircase banister is original, however they put in a newer banister attached to the wall to help us climb the extremely steep 66 steps to the upper rooms of the temple.

The second floor assembly room was almost completely white everywhere. It had vaulted ceilings and curtains to separate the large room in to smaller classrooms. The beautiful windows allowed for natural light to brighten the rooms. The second floor was not as detailed as the first floor assembly room. The big bay window glass had to be broken to fit the special design they made for it and a lot of the windows were original. The desks in the pew boxes could be lifted or lowered depending on the type of meeting held.

The attic had five rooms with 2 doorways into each. There was no hallway, so they built a crawl space to the side so as not to disturb other classes or meetings in progress to get to the other rooms. Joseph's office was a the end where he studied Hebrew.

The main floor was more ornate and detailed. It also had a sacrament table. We checked the side benches for our friend's restorative work and found his label on the 2 benches. We got to sit in the pew boxes (which locked) and the tour guide had us pass around an old hymn book (she kept calling them "hems") as well as the words to the dedicatory prayer. She kept calling the religion a "movement," which was vexing me greatly.

We weren't actually able to take pictures of the inside of the temple, so those 2 of the inside are just postcards. It started pouring rain right after our tour ended . . . I'm talking Little House on the Prairie rain, so we had to use umbrellas and run back to the Visitors Center.

When the rain stopped, we were able to go back outside to snap some more pictures.

I'm certainly grateful for the sacrifice of the early Saints in building this beautiful temple and I'm grateful that the Community of Christ church for it's continued care, though I thought it funny to note that I felt the spirit more at The Sawmill and Ashery than I did at the Kirtland Temple. There is just something about dedicated ground, no matter what stands on it.

JOHN & ELSA JOHNSON HOME
This home in Hiram, Ohio had beautiful grounds. I love how well the church takes care of their property. The church owns the 160 acres on the North of the street, but does not own the 100 acres South which John Johnson had originally owned.

We were impressed by the response of the missionaries when we mentioned that our last name was Dibble. They perked right up, but also got nervous to tell the story of Philo Dibble who was Elliot's great-great-great-grandfather.

85% of the Johnson home is original. In it's restorative work, the church tried to save as much original wood as possible as well as sanding down newer paint jobs to see what the original colors were in the home.

The Carriage House was just like a garage off the side of the house where people would park and then take their horses down to the barn.

The Johnson home also had a summer baking kitchen as well as a huge regular kitchen and pantry, with the birth room right off to the side. Deliver a baby, bake a pie. It's all the same. There was a tiny office off to the side of the kitchen where John Johnson took care of his 4 businesses (butter/cheese made in cellar, dairy farm-16 cows, saw mill, and we can't remember the other one).

The sitting room was where John and Elsa spent a whole night up reading the Book of Mormon because someone came by to report that their son, Lyman, had joined the Mormon church. He brought the Book of Mormon for them to read and they were baptized soon after.

Four apostles came from the Johnson family - their sons, Luke and Lyman, as well as their sons-in-law William McClellan and Orson Hyde.

The parlor room had an interesting floor. It's exactly like it was back when Elsa lived there. Our tour guide called her the Martha Stewart of her time. They turned this parlor room into a bedroom for Joseph and Emma to live in for a time. This is where a mob pulled Joseph from his bed and he was beaten, tarred, and feathered.

They spent the rest of the morning cleaning him up and he was still able to speak to over 150 people (from this front porch) who gathered at the front of the house that morning, including 4 of the mob members. They were later baptized because they knew that he had to be a prophet to be able to do that.

Joseph and Emma's adopted son died several days later. He had been sick before, but after the mob came and took Joseph that night, the cold from the front door made him worse.

The childrens rooms were upstairs (they had several children), which they separated and built walls to make room for John & Elsa's room. The attic room could fit more than 35 people in it.

The there was a staircase that led straight to the "revelation room." The Revelation Room was very sacred. This is where God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon during a series of 10 revelations that lasted 90 minutes. This was the Plan of Salvation (Doctrine & Covenants 76:22-24). Philo Dibble walked in and though he could not see the revelation, he could see the countenance of Joseph was different. He noted that Sidney Rigdon looked tired. There were other men in the room and they all sat silent and unmoving during the whole thing.

We liked how the couple missionaries (Elder & Sister Dalton, Colorado) bore their testimony at every opportunity. We loved the quiet, still, serene, and peaceful feeling that we felt at the John Johnson Home. This was a special place for our family to be.

THE AMISH
Our friend Barry has an Amish friend that lived in the area, so we went to visit him. It was a holiday, so his whole family was visiting and we totally interrupted their volleyball game. I was so nervous that Stella was going to ask embarrassing questions about them, but she just wanted to see their horses and was excited about the carriages. Mark Miller was very nice and gave us a tour of his wood shop which is powered by hydraulics and not electricity. He does beautiful work. Several years ago, Elliot helped Barry install some of Mark's cabinetry in someone's home in Fountain Hills.

They don't like their picture taken, and I wasn't going to ask. But we saw someone else in a carriage on our way back to the hotel, so I took their picture.

We love Kirtland. Now, on to the rest of the church history tour! (at a different time than now)