Temple Square

July 2015
Temple Square, Salt Lake City Utah

For our anniversary we decided to stay close to home and celebrate by exploring the city we live in. There was a chance Chris would have to go away over our anniversary, so we started to celebrate early. I was feeling AMAZING that week and wanted to go go go...but Chris, being to wise man he his, made me pace myself and we explored our city safely and smartly.


First stop was Temple Square.  There is lots to see and do within Temple Square. We walked through the gardens, got caught in the rain, toured one of the visitor centers, and decided to take a guided tour of the grounds. Our two tour guides were delightful young ladies, one from Mexico and one from Italy. Both were so sweet as they struggled with their English and apologized for that. There were four of us, Chris and I, and a couple from the Netherlands. We all joked that every one of us struggles with English...including the two Americans! Our guides talked to us about the LDS faith and certain historical facts about the LDS church, the Mormon settlers, Salt Lake City, and the Temple. The couple from the Netherlands have Christian background, as do we. So between the four of us we had a lot of questions about the LDS faith. It was fascinating to hear our tour guide's stories.

Here is the Eagle Gate at North Temple and State Street.  The Beehive House and the LDS office building are behind it.

 
The gardens near the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

 

 
Salt Lake Temple. The Temple was started in 1853 and took 40 years to build. It is made of Quartz monzonite (looks like granite) and was quarried from Little Cottonwood Canyon (we visited the old quarry site several days later.) The angel Moroni is the gold figure on the very top. Here are some more interesting facts on the Temple.
 

 
 
The Beehive House. This house was the home (or one of the homes) of Brigham Young, carpenter by trade, leader, a president of the LDS church, and governor of the Utah Territory. Pretty much the master mind behind Salt Lake City and a god like figure here in the valley. You can see more pictures of the house here. The tour of the house was guided by LDS missionaries. It was interesting to be on a tour of an historic home that is so closely tied to the LDS church. I caught some historical errors and typical myths. But the biggest thing I noticed was the historical/LDS bias. I knew the Mormon's have been known to bend historical facts here and there...some of the things I heard were rather amusing. I also noticed they present their history on how they emotionally feel about. Like - "I really feel Brigham Young was like this..." or "I feel he was like that..." or "I feel they use to do this...". Someone asked how many children he had, they did not know. We asked at another site several days later and got a vague answer. Man...that guy was busy.  

 

But all in all, it was a good tour. It gave us a better understanding of what we live among and gave us a better idea how to talk with our LDS neighbors (without sounding like our only knowledge on Mormons is from South Park.)  Our guides were very respectful that we were not interested in converting and were very willing to talk if we had questions. 

I risked it big time going into the house, I felt it a little, but it could have been worse. Just please don't tell my doctor what we have been up to! ;-)