15 MILES ON THE ERIE CANAL - Part I

Palmyra was founded in 1789 and the Erie Canal played an important part in its early history as well as much of the early history of upstate New York. In fact, even today Palmyra is often referred to as "Canaltown".  Last weekend, September 18 and 19 was the 43rd Annual Canaltown Days here in Palmyra, complete with a parade on Saturday. 

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Elder and Sister Werner, one of the senior couples here at the sites thought it would be a good idea if the local missionaries entered a float in the parade.

So Elder Werner drew up some plans with the help of his computer, and the missionaries started to work.  We projected the words, that were to carry our message on the float, onto a wall and traced them onto freezer paper.

Tables were set up in the basement of the Hill Cumorah Visitors' Center, and as missionaries had time, they painted in the letters.

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We are blessed to have Sister Weber, an art student, here on a mission. She did a large part of painting the frame divider for the float.  The front half of the float had a living room scene of a pioneer family and the back half a scene of a modern family.  The following message was on the side of the float:

"STRONG FAMILIES STILL BUILD STRONG NATIONS".

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On Saturday morning, the senior missionaries that weren't working at the sites met together to assemble the float.

We pounded and wired and stapled and taped!

We climbed ladders, draped crepe paper and had a good time!

Then we rested a little!

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The parade took place on Saturday afternoon at 4:00 PM in downtown Palmyra.  Elder Watts and I didn't get to watch it because we were working at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center, so Elder Hales, a fellow senior missionary took pictures for this blog post.

The family dressed as pioneers rode on the front half of the float . . .

. . . the modern family rode on the back half of the float. . .

. . . and six young missionaries walked beside the float handing out free copies of the DVD,

Together Forever and the pamphlet,

The Family, A Proclamation to the World.

AND . . .our float took 3rd place! 

BEST OF ALL, we were able to share a message about the importance of families!

To get your free copy of Together Forever call the number on the sidebar of this blog.

Next post - more about the Erie Canal