Day 6: A visit to my home ward & The Mormon Battalion...

Sunday, August 20TH...

We took it easy this day... I took all my boys to church in the afternoon to visit my old home ward I grew up in... it felt good to be back.  This was the only ward I'd ever known until going off to college when I was 18.  It's nice to see familiar faces, shake hands with my former bishops, introduce folks to my litter of kids, sit on pews during Sacrament I remember sitting on as a little girl and singing out of hymn books that have sat in the chapel since I was probably 3 or 4 years old (I still can vaguely remember the 1ST Sunday our ward received the new green hymn books- it felt like Christmas!  Kinda.  Okay, not really, but it was nice to get rid of the old ones that were falling apart)...  It's sort of funny, cuz some of the folks I remember thinking were old when I was young, were still alive and attending church--- they hadn't looked like they'd aged a year!  They all looked the same! Overall, it just felt comforting, sitting next to my mom in church... having her there by my side just felt right.  And it couldn't have been any better, because my dad was there too!  I LOVE that man.  I still hope and pray that one day, he'll accept the gospel as I've done and so many others in my family have.

Utah has a lot of nice church buildings and tabernacles, 

but none that can match the beauty of the church I grew up attending.  

Look at those palm trees! 

Only in California!

After attending church, I drove with my mom, neice Paresa and 3 of my boys down to Old Town, to visit the newly renovated Mormon Battalion.  I have only one word about the renovations: WOW! They were impressive!  What happened to the circa 60's Mormon Battalion Center I remember visiting as a kid during our school's 4TH grade Old Town Program or during mutual and Young Women's???  I really enjoyed how interactive the whole place was now with visitors!

My boys REALLY had fun panning for gold towards the end of their visit!

On our drive home from Old Town (which is only about 10 minutes from my parents home) my boys begged me to drive them past the old Whaley House (click here to read about it)... I'd told them how it's haunted and they wanted to see a REAL HAUNTED HOUSE with their own eyes.  Ian claims to this day, that he saw a ghost peering out of one of the home's 2ND story windows... Hah!