Utah - Salt Lake City and Ogden

I have been planning to visit Kelsey and Josh's home in Ogden, Utah for years now, but just haven't been able to find the time or a good excuse. When Kelsey sent out a note inviting me to her baby shower at the same time I found a killer plane ticket deal to SLC, I was in like flint.

Friday, Feb. 20 -
Flying in over the salt lakes looking at the beautiful snow capped mountains I was captivated by the beauty of the terrain. At the same time I was quite surprised at how small the "downtown" area was for such a big city. There weren't very many skyscrapers, but you could definitely see the Mormon temple even upon landing. Perhaps that's the way the "pioneers" designed it to be.... it wouldn't surprise me. Anyhow, Carolynn picked me up from the airport and we decided to head to "Temple Square" and check it out. When in Rome, right? The weather was surprisingly warm (about 45 degrees) and the sun was out, it was a great day for walking around the acres of Mormon land.

After the tour guides instantly knew we weren't Mormons (was it our heathen jeans and tennis shoes?) we spent about the next 4 hours checking out the grounds and getting the hard sell to join the church. We got to take pictures with "Our lord and savior Jesus Christ" (always the full description, not just Jesus), and learn about the history of the church and it's prophets. I noticed how all the tour guides were very careful in how they chose their words, such as "families taking care of other families in need" to explain polygamy, and "any blessed mormon can do this or that" to refer to those in good standing (AKA paid their tithings), not just any mormon. I found the whole experience fascinating.

During our tours we must have gotten asked 5 times to fill out comment cards with our personal information to have missionaries sent to our house, which I really didn't have a problem with since we had come to their church headquarters. However, I did feel uncomfortable when at one point we were even cornered in Brigham Young's house (called the Bee House) and asked to make a promise to kneel in front of our beds every night and pray to "our God". A tad presumptuous, eh? After that awkward ordeal, we decided we needed a little break and stopped at the Lion House for lunch where I had some of the best Sarsaparilla (Brigham's favorite, after all) and roll I've ever had. It was a nice break from the intensity of all the people trying to "help".

After lunch we decided to head over to the Church Records building where there was an observatory on top of the building where we could look out on the whole Salt Lake Valley. We were told the building was closed to non church members, except for the observatory which we could be escorted up to. Upon walking in the building we were escorted everywhere, including with a special elevator key that only allowed the elevator to go to the top of the building! I did understand, but it sure made you feel unwelcome and as if we were going to rob the place! I also had to laugh when we were in the elevator with an obviously gay guy, wondering how he must feel even more uncomfortable than we did! The views from the top were incredible, we were able to see the State capitol building, the temple (with several brides taking photos in front), the "U" on the mountain, and even where Brigham Young's grave was.

Since we had been informed earlier that getting married in the temple vs. the church meant the difference between a bond sealed through eternity vs. one just sealed for a lifetime, we knew that it must be a popular place to get married. We learned that there are multiple "bride rooms" in the temple so multiple weddings could occur simultaneously, and that Monday-Friday was much more crowded than the weekends! Who knew? Personally I would hate having to share my church and wedding location with someone else at the same time, but I guess that's the price you pay for eternity.

When we took as many pictures as we wanted and were saturated with Mormon lore, we got back into Josh's car and headed North to Ogden. We finally got to see the Simmons' cute little home (and adorable nursery) and chat for a bit. Shortly after Josh got home from work we all piled in a car to go pick up our sorority sister Sara, and her boyfriend from the SLC airport. We had a fun dinner at a a nice Italian restaurant and then headed back to Ogden once again. Despite the fact that it was about 35 degrees outside we decided to stop for some Baskin Robbins before heading back to the house. With a serious sugar high the California girls decided to indulge our fascination with the snow and tried to play in it and have a snowball fight. Sadly the snow was much to icy to do anything with, but it was fun anyway.