I had a day of rest finally, on Sunday. No driving around, no rushing to get somewhere else. It was really nice for a change. I went to church at a nearby building, then came back to the hotel to read and have a really long nap. In the evening I drove up the mountain to the Bountiful temple. Amazing view from up there. It's a steep climb, in a few places I had to put the car in 2nd gear to keep it going! The altitude gives an amazingly wide view of the Salt Lake valley, with the Great Salt Lake not too far in the distance. I took a half hour drive out to the south shore of the lake but the drive-in access had closed an hour before. Not much to see there, but it has a really briny smell. What a surprise!
So that was it for excitement for the day. Watched some Youtube stuff and went to bed.
This morning I headed over to the Salt Lake temple and got there in plenty of time to do the 11:00 session. There were lots of people there. It was very interesting. I had never seen a live session before, and it really seemed to add something to the whole experience. It seemed, I don't know how to put it...it just seemed better with actual people standing there doing the talking, rather than watching a video and hearing the recorded voices I've heard so many times before.
And that temple is absolutely stunning. Just gorgeous. I'd recommend a visit there for anyone, to see it at least once. It just reopened today after two weeks of maintenance, and one of the staff there told me they'd been replacing some wall paper. I got so lost in there! I guess they had removed the signs telling you which way to go to the change rooms. I wandered around for a while until I smelled chlorine, then I beat a hasty retreat. The smell of chlorine meant I was getting close to the baptistry where the teenagers do baptisms for the dead. I was decked out in all my temple clothes, and the teens aren't supposed to see all that stuff until they get endowed for themselves, so I turned right around and tried to find another way. I finally found my way back. That place is really big and without signs you can get turned around really fast.
I wandered around Temple Square for a bit and soaked in the beauty of the gardens and how serene it was. There wasn't a lot of traffic noise in there, despite being right downtown. It's a real sanctuary in there, lots of statues and fountains and flowers...ahhhh. I could have spent all day in there.
I went into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Wow, that place is gorgeous, too. I went up to the 10th floor to have some lunch and enjoyed a west view overlooking temple square. However, for some reason (even at 2:00 when the lunch crowd was pretty much gone), it took the kitchen about 40 minutes to make me a sandwich. The manager brought it out and said they'd comp it. So, whee, an annoyingly long wait and I was very hungry, but I got a free lunch. If I were spiteful I would have ordered a few desserts to go, too! :) But I'm not like that. I was really tired. Nap time for Pammy.
I went back down to the lobby and watched tourists for a while, then went to see the movie about Joseph Smith in the Legacy Theater. There were a lot of people in there. The tissue boxes at the theater entrance should have been a hint. I thought I had a pack on me and had to resort to sniffing during loud musical moments to clear my nose. So many things in that movie turned on the tears. When Joseph's father was dying, he asked Joseph, "Will I see Alvin again?" Alvin was Joseph's oldest brother who had died several years before, as a young man. I knew the answer was yes, but those tender feelings of loss and grief in the movie made me miss mom again. I wish she was here.
I had parked my car under the conference center (free parking when you get a token from the temple), so on the way out I stopped in and peeked inside for a few minutes. Oh my goodness. The place seats 21,000 on two levels and it was constructed so that there are no supporting pillars blocking anyone's view. Fantastic! Here's a link to some photos of the place. http://byuvirtualtours.blogspot.com/2010/03/lds-conference-center.html
And now I'm back in my hotel room. Tomorrow's my birthday, although it felt like the celebration started today with being able to be in the temple. Tomorrow I'll go back to Temple Square with my camera and try to spend some time in the family history library. So much to see...should have booked myself an extra day here!
I've been thinking about home lately. I don't know what it's going to be like to be back and not have an itinerary to follow anymore. Well, for a couple of weeks, anyways. I'll be back in Utah in mid-August to go to BYU's Education Week. Can't wait for that!
There have only been a few times I've wished I had company on this trip. Today waiting for my lunch was one. But the rest of the time I'm really happy to be doing this by myself. I've spent a lot of time thinking and listening instead of doing all the talking. It's been precious time. I'll be kind of sad to see it end.
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