The Amish in Perry County PA

After Chruch at the New Bloomfield Ward Elder and Sister Smith were invited to attend the annual Reisinger bean soup get together and the Parents of Gene and Any Reisinger who are members of the New Bloomfield Ward. This annual bean soup day is attended by all of the neighbors who live around the Reisingers most of which are not members of the Church. We were able to get aquainted with Gene's parents and some of his family. There were also a number of Ward members who come. Everyone brings pot luck and Gene's father makes the bean soup in a ten gallon pot and cooks it over the fire. The soup was wonderful and the food was excellent with some of the Pennsylvania recipies included. We kind of felt out of place to we moved from the garage to a open tent where we were setting by some of the members and next of an Amish couple. We got into a conversation with them and began to tell them of our admiration of their culture and how wonderful they have been to us. Pretty soon we were visiting with them as if they were old friends. They ask us if we had seen any of the olympics in Utah and we told them that we were volinteers and had work during the games. They have 4 children and when they were getting ready to leave we ask them if they would have any problem if we took a picture of them. The said they would be glad to have their picture taken with us and invited us to go with them on a buggy ride.

So we loaded up into the buggy with all six of the Fisher family and away we went down the road at about 15 miles per hour with the horse at a full trot. Benuel gave the rains to Elder Smith and let him drive the horse and buggy for a while. What fun that we for him.

As we were traveling down the road Beniel was telling us about the horse. He was 6 years old and had been a cutter racing horse at one time but now they just used him to pull their buggy. The buggy has head lights, tail lights and turn signals on it. This was their open buggy, they also have a closed buggy that has inside lights in it.

After the buggy ride they invited us to their home some evening in the near future for bar b que hambergers and and evening ride in the buggy. We gave them our home address and invited them to Utah. We told them we would love to show them Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake.

We are looking forward to getting to know them better and to see their culture from their eyes.

They are such wonderful people and so kind and caring. They want to share their way of life with us just like we are sharing our way of life with them. As we were returning back to Mechanicsburg we drove past their home and stopped to take some pictures of their school house.