USRT15 #14--Salt Lake City

We left Idaho, taking a random detour through Echo Canyon before making it to Utah. 

I really need to start making a list of fortuitous wrong turns. Or perhaps it should be titled "Times I Didn't Know Where I Was Going But Then Discovered Why I Was There." I couldn't get over the striking beauty of these red and worn, curved canyon walls. I said a little prayer of gratitude as we sat in this parking lot for the opportunity I was having to witness something so new to me and beautiful.

We were able to fit in just another day with my parents. They graciously hosted us at a hotel, touring Temple Square with us during the day and watching our kids so we could serve in the Salt Lake Temple in the evening.

Unphotographed are two important stops. The first was at the Lion House buffet. The second was at the Family Search Center in the Hotel Utah. It's interactive displays were amazing and entertaining and humbling. Seeing your ancestors faces appear on a ten-foot by twenty-foot screen and watching the computer draw lines on a map on that giant screen from those ancestors' homes across the ocean to the United States is really impressive.

I love good stories. True stories are even better. The best stories are the ones that remind me of how strong people are and how much Heavenly Father loves His children--those are the stories that instruct me and inspire me. The stories of this historic spot fit that description. Temple Square is saturated with details that testify of God, from the Seagulls to the wooden buttresses and pews of the Tabernacle.

This is the House of the Lord. I know it. I've blogged about how I feel about temples before, and I might do it again. They are evidence that God still leads us and loves us and wants his children to gather together to do work that He would do if he were here.

Generally, when Dan and I go to our closest temple (located in Washington, DC) we don't take much time to admire the temple from the outside, but because our children aren't old enough to go inside for temple service yet, on this trip we were able to soak in the beauty of the temple grounds outside. 

I decided that this might be the most photogenic building I have ever admired. Every angle is amazing. Around every corner there is a new detail I hadn't noticed before or a perspective I hadn't seen. 

I feel the same way about learning the gospel and serving at church and in the temple. There is always so much more to understand. I could never possible come to the conclusion that I know it all--my life has been one day after another of learning that I didn't really know everything the day before.

We also stopped into the Conference Center and listened to an organist practice for a few minutes. Joshua is anticipating his first trip to a meeting there next year.

We were also able to spend some time in the visitor center that houses a giant statue of Jesus Christ. It is simply called Christus, a replica of the original in Denmark. Our church has adopted this image because Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our Church. 

As I walk up into this circular room, my mind and heart opens every time to Christ's role in my little old life. As small as I feel like I am in the universe, I feel known to Him. I feel like I know Him.

A narration plays occasionally of his words, largely from the four gospels, I've noticed. "Peace, I give you. My peace I bring unto you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let your heart not be troubled. Neither let is be afraid."

II hope my kids learn feel as close to Him as we were to that symbolic statue.

And back to the best stories, if you haven't heard the story of the Mormon pioneers, you are missing out. These immigrants were not perfect, but they were trying. Their leaders figured things out with God's help as they went. The miracles are unmistakable. With no one to receive them but the mountains, no one to help them but seagulls and a few really kind chiefs of the Uinta tribe, they survived the unsurvivable and built an amazing foundation in 1846. It was a community where our church could grow free from the persecution and threats of destruction in the East. 

The miracles were made possible through individual steps made by people driven by faith alone. Steps that took them from Council Bluffs, Nebraska to the Salt Lake Valley. Steps that took them to their assigned places in the dessert to farm. Steps that took them up and down the same rows of crops for years as they fought to create soil that would grow food to sustain their families. 

"This is the Place" Monument details that struggle and gives tribute to all of the explorers, priests in the Catholic Church, native americans, and frontiersman who had come before.