benbow farm & gadfield elm chapel
church history :)

we took a a weekend jaunt to wales, and stopped at some church history sites on the way home. this below is hill farm- also known as the benbow farm. this farm belonged to john and jane benbow, converts from heredforshire, who were baptized by wilford woodruff. the benbow's were a wealthy family, and they gave much financial support to the early church in england. jane donated a considerable amount of money to help pay for copies to be made of the book of mormon to distribute throughout the british mission. they also helped fund the passage to america for saints that could not afford it, and they eventually immigrated to america, but unfortunately jane didn't make it all the way to salt lake, and is buried at winter quarters. wilford woodruff had great success in this area, baptizing around 1800 in a period of 8 months! isn't that amazing?! the pond below is where most of these baptisms took place, and although the farm is still owned privately, the church owns the strip of land where the pond is. the farm was so beautiful. i could easily get used to living there!

{john and jane benbow's farm house}

{the pond where w. woodruff baptized a lot of people @ the hill farm}

here is the gadfield elm chapel. this is the oldest lds meeting house in the whole world! (2nd oldest builing after the kirtland temple.) the church restored and owns it, and there is a senior couple that helps to look after it. they were not there when we got there, but they left a unique was for us, and other mormon visitors to get in! there was a lock box on the door, and in order to crack the code you had to answer a series of questions. some of them were...
1. what is heber kimball's middle initial?
2. how many degrees of glory are there?
3. what age are you baptized?
4. how many books in enos?
(c381)!
i thought that was so clever! i should have taken a picture of the questions. we were able to look around the church- it was very small, and them we sat in the chapel and got to hear about some of the stories that happened in that very chapel. to end we got to sing the spirit of god, and it was soooo neat. it was the perfect way to end the way.

{gadfield elm chapel}

{gadfield elm chapel}