Spring Break - Day 2 - Salt Lake City

We started our day today by quizzing our children about church history. The best church purchase we have made is a collection of discs about the history of the church. Our kids love these DVDs and would watch them every Sunday if we allowed it. So, we were expecting that they would know most of the questions, and they did. Gillian has a great love for Joseph Smith because of his good nature and happy constitution, but she also has a great respect for Brigham Young, especially because of his amazing vision for the Saints of that time. She knew a lot about Brigham Young, but it was still special to share a few more facts about this great visionary prophet of God and the work he accomplished in the Salt Lake Valley.

The first item on our list was touring Temple Square. It was absolutely touching for me to go back where I served my mission and had so many unforgettable memories. We asked for an Albanian missionary for my mother, and then had her American companion give us a tour. Temple Square hadn't changed that much since I had last been there with Elijah some eight years ago. However, I noticed there were no senior couples serving on Temple Square any more. That was one of the best part of my mission, having those missionary couples in lieu of our parents at any time. Some of my favorite friendships that still last today involve those precious senior couples. But times change...

The Albanian missionary told us that there hadn't been any Albanian sister missionaries in Temple Square since the time that I and the other two Albanian sisters left our mission. It seems I had raised the bar too high. Just kidding. This sister missionary was very sweet and humble, and loved the Lord sincerely. I was touched by her simple, but sweet testimony.

We visited the North Visitor Center, stopping at the statue of Christ,

then the children got to hear the organ in the Tabernacle play,
and mom was mesmerized by the craftsmanship of the Assembly Hall,
I realized that although I didn't remember most of the facts from the tours I gave, such as how many pipes does the Tabernacle Organ contain (11, 623 with 700 of them being the original ones from the time of the pioneers), I did remember the stories very well. Here is a picture of the Seagull monument erected to remember the miracles of God in the life of the pioneers (this happens to be Gillian's favorite story about prayer and the very story Elijah used in his first talk). The other one is in memory of the sacrifice that many pioneers, traveling in hand carts and walking many miles a day, performed for their faith.

We followed the Sister Missionaries to the South Visitor Center, where we found an excellent model of the Salt Lake Temple itself. It was an amazing tool to show the non-members that the temple is not a secret we can't share with others, but on the contrary, a very sacred place. Gillian got excited when I told her that if she remains righteous, she will get to enter it in four years.

This marked the end of the tour, and so after using bathrooms, and after Gillian and the boys tried every interactive screen, we headed toward temple grounds, where I had no doubt we would see a bride or two getting their pictures taken (and I was right; we saw three of them).

We visited the colorful and multipurpose Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

We went all the way up to the 26th floor of the Church Office Building and gazed out from the observation deck over the whole Salt Lake Valley.

And we ended our tour by visiting the Conference Center, the biggest auditorium in the world with a seat capacity of 21,000. Did you know that Brigham Young had this vision of seating about 20,000 people in the Tabernacle, but his architects of that era couldn't deliver a building in such a grand scale. Instead, Brigham Young got the Tabernacle with 6,000 seats. Talk about a visionary man!

We really wanted to show the children more, but they seemed tired and hungry. We got back to our hotel, and after a good lunch-dinner meal, we all got some rest. After feeling recuperated, we got dressed and went to visit a senior couple missionary, the Jensen's. We became such great friends in our mission, that after I finished my mission, I visited them quite often. I was looking foreword to seeing them.
The children really enjoyed their visit to Salt Lake City. Tomorrow, we revisit Provo, and then travel toward Rexburg, Idaho.

Spring Break - Day 1-

Elijah and I have been wanting to show our children Salt Lake City and its church history sights since we moved here. With my mom leaving in a few weeks, we decided that was a great idea for Spring Break. After celebrating Jefferson's birthday, and then Easter, I really needed a break. Although this wasn't the break I had in mind, this trip had me excited, since I would be showing my family where I served my mission (Temple Square). Elijah and I wanted our kids to see BYU and Provo, as well as BYU-Idaho. We both attended both BYUs, and two of Elijah's sisters and one brother with his family now live in Rexburg, Idaho. Salt Lake City, Provo, and Rexburg sounded like a good plan. The children were absolutely excited to see their family, and especially their cousins.

We started our trip today a bit later than we wanted to. We usually leave early in the morning, around 4 or 5 am, but this morning we either didn't hear the alarm, or Elijah forgot to set it, which sounds unlikely. Nevertheless, we were all in good spirits, and with the exception of James and Gillian throwing up a couple of times (they use a bag and clean after themselves without disturbing anybody else), we had a wonderful trip.

We had Elijah and myself up front listening to talk shows, my mother and Charlton feeding, napping and playing with each other in the middle section, and the three older kids reading, drawing, and playing in the back side. Elijah did give in after lunch time and allowed the kids to watch their new Narnia movie (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader), mostly so I could take a nap without being disturbed.

We left Concord with good weather and later were greeted by misty roads and snowy hills around the Lake Tahoe area. Gillian said that the beautiful view of trees covered in snow reminded her of the world of Narnia. It did look magical. I didn't dare open the window too many times (I hate being cold), but here are a couple of fun pictures I was able to take very fast:


It snowed lightly the whole time we drove through Northern California, Nevada, and some in Utah. It was fun waking up from my nap and seeing the Bonneville Salt Flats stretching for miles and miles at a time. And then, as we were about to enter Salt Lake City, we were happily greeted by the Great Salt Lake and the majestic Wasatch Mountains:


We drove around down town and showed the children the Salt Lake Temple, and then headed toward our hotel. As soon as we were all unpacked, we took to the streets and found the Olive Garden restaurant nearby. We stopped and dinned there mostly for nostalgic reasons, since I used to frequent this restaurant as a missionary (the senior couples who served with us would take us there). After dinner was pleasantly consumed, we went back to our hotel, and enjoyed a relaxed evening watching some TV and reading. I couldn't wait to show my children Temple Square the next day.