Puddles, Parties, and Publications

I can't remember if I'd posted this before, but here it is.  Theo decided stepping through this puddle would be awesome.  He was right!

 On Saturday, we went to our huge stake activity called The Big Event! Since the geography of our stake is so spread out, they decided one event every year would be better than several smaller ones throughout the year.  So they put all their funds and activities energy into one all day Event, and it was super fun!

Theo helped Corbin play volleyball, and they were a great team.  There was also cornholing, horse shoes, frisbee, kick ball, a bounce house, swimming, a fantastic lunch, and plenty of fun people to see.

Our friend Sarah took Theo for a few minutes at the end (which I was exceedingly grateful for.  Chasing a toddler for hours on end is a bit tiring). Theo coerced her into giving him a never-ending supply of watermelon. This lead to his first bath-pooping experience, but sorry, no pictures of that.

Today, Theo and I trecked up to Cornell to meet with some friends in the branch in the rare books library.  We got to see a first edition printing of the Book of Mormon, which was totally awesome.  

I thought it would be the kind of situation where he would bring it out wearing special gloves, and instruct us not to breath on it too much as we looked across the table at it.  To my surprise, he starts passing it around the table!

As we each got a chance to look at it, he told us some facts about the first edition.  There were no verse markings, no index, and numerous errors (in type setting or punctuation).  But it was fascinating to see it as if it were a novel, with only paragraph indents to break up a page.  

The curator found it very interesting that after translating this book, Joseph Smith imediately had it printed and started circulating copies.  He told us the first printed version of the Qur'an wasn't created until that same year, 1930 (or thereabout).  He thought it was great that Joseph Smith embraced technology in the aid of his religion in order to spread the word and convert people.  I'm glad that the Church still does that today, embracing new technologies and always keeping up with the times. 

As we walked past the bell tower afterwards, it struck twelve o'clock and we got to enjoy the bells ringing.  It is such a pleasure to be here in Ithaca, despite all the challenges that go along with it.  We have a years worth of wonderful memories, and I'm excited to make a few years worth more.