Summer Utah Trip: Temple Square

We spent all day Friday in Salt Lake visiting Temple Square Visitors Centers and the Church Museum of History and Art for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Grandma, Grandpa, Emily and Baby Stephen joined us. It was a wonderful day! We loved seeing the replica of the inside of the Salt Lake Temple in the south visitor's center. The kids loved getting an idea of just how beautiful the inside of the temple is.

They also really enjoyed the church commercials and played their favorite ones over and over again.

We loved the Museum of History and Art. The kids really enjoyed the traveling exhibit, "I Am a Child of God." We spent atleast an hour if not two, in the exhibit. There were lots of fun hands-on learning activities for the kids to do. We were all very impressed. I especially loved how sweet Aaron was with his little "adopted" baby. He handled the doll with great care and when it was time to leave, he made sure to wrap the baby in a blanket and tucked him off to bed.

I absolutely loved our day at temple square. I wanted each of us to strengthen our testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to feel the spirit, and have a learning experience about the history of our church, and I also wanted the kids to see that they are part of such a big and wonderful organization. Aside from the spiritual blessings of the Gospel, I believe there is great strength in numbers and because we don't live in an area heavily populated with Latter-day Saints, I wanted them to get a feel for the worldwide multi-million person church they belong to. It was a very successful trip.

I really feel like it was a special day for all of them. After the museum, we had a delicious dinner at The Lion House Pantry where Elder Russell M. Ballard sat at the table next to us with his wife, his granddaughter and her boyfriend. I suspect it was some kind of time-to-see-if-my-grandpa-approves type of date. :) It was really neat for the girls to get to see an Apostle in real life. We all recognized his voice right away.

After dinner we toured Brigham Young's home and then went to see the Joseph Smith movie in the Legacy Theater. We were all so touched by the sacrifices of our first latter-day prophet, and also by the sacrifices made by his family.

It was a perfect day, and to top it all we picked up Joseph (Dad) at the airport to spend another wonderful few days with us.