Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

Yesterday our singles family home evening group attended the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. It was interesting to see a second temple open house so close to viewing another one. Our FHE group also attended the Draper Temple open house a few months ago.

The Oquirrh Mountain Temple was similar in a lot of ways to the Draper Temple. They are smaller temples comparatively speaking. I also noticed how much they used darker neutral colors through out. And again the furniture was very modern just like the Draper Temple. The most noticeable difference was the use of lots of floor tile. It seems like it might make for too much noise. I know that it definitely contributed to the noise during the open house. But I am sure that it will make cleaning and maintenance so much easier.

After the open house several of us stopped by the Red Robin for smoothies and some appetizers. It was a great time.

Arrgh, Where Be Me Bird?

So a few weeks ago I was walking over to the church when I kept on hearing this bizarre noise. I couldn't really figure out what it was. As I got closer to the church I thought it must be a bird but it was making noises unlike any bird I hear around these parts. I started looking up into the huge trees that border the church when I heard the noise again. I turned to look at the playground back on the other side of the fence and I spotted a beautiful huge parrot just sitting in the playground house. If you look closely at the photo above you can see it. I was freaking out because this was a big bird and I'm pretty sure a very expensive one. I thought someone is really missing it. I took a photo with my iPhone just for proof. After I got to the church I found the camera I use for photographing new families and went back to get a better photo. By then there was a man with the bird. Apparently the bird wasn't there alone. I was relieved that at least he wasn't lost. The owner told me that the bird is worth $12,000 and can't fly anyway. Well at least I got a good photo of it. And I was happy that he wasn't lost.

Today's Thought: Dream Big

I was just reading another blog and on it the guy was listing all these things that he wanted to accomplish and some of them were maybe a little "out there." He also listed a several of his dreams that he had accomplished. Both lists were pretty long. But what I really liked about the posting was that he then listed the following quote by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland from a CES fireside that was related to dreams. I liked it so much that I wanted to share it here:

"God expects you to have enough faith and determination and enough trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. In fact, He expects you not simply to face the future (that sounds pretty grim and stoic); He expects you to embrace and shape the future—to love it and rejoice in it and delight in your opportunities.

"God is anxiously waiting for the chance to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, just as He always has. But He can’t if you don’t pray, and He can’t if you don’t dream. In short, He can’t if you don’t believe" (bold added).

All too often I'm a pessimist about what I or others can or cannot do. Sounds like I need to adjust my thinking and dream big!

I iPhone

So I did it. I've been talking about it and talking about it. But this time I actually did it. I bought an iPhone!

The past two weeks I have been without my home phone. Thanks MStar! I have been considering dropping that phone line anyway and just using a cell phone. So doing without it for two weeks was just the push that I needed I guess. My previous phone was a little Motorola flip phone. I could never hear really great on it and I never loved that phone anyway. So I guess it was time for a new one.

Today in church I was already finding new uses for my phone. No, I'm not talking about playing games during sacrament meeting. But I decided to see if there was an application for my phone that would allow me to count attendance at church. Sure enough there is a Tally Counter. Unfortunately I didn't get it downloaded in time for this week. But I'll be trying it out next week. Also my "man bag" as I like to call it, was significantly lighter today. Now I can use my iPhone instead of my old scriptures.

When I signed up, I did it on my brother's family plan where they already had unlimited text messaging and more minutes than they ever use. Thanks, Ben! And I'm dropping my home phone soon. So in the end even though I had to buy the phone, I will be saving at least $20 a month. Ye haw!

Banff Mountain Festival FHE

For our single's FHE (Family Home Evening) this week we went up to Kingsbury Hall at the University of Utah to watch several films from the Banff Mountain Festival World Tour. All the films were pretty good and entertaining. (The consensus was that only one of them, Red Gold, was a little long for the subject matter.) It was a fun time. Thanks to Molly for planning it. Here were the films we saw:

The Red Helmet
Mountain Town
Red Gold
Committed 2: Grit Kids
The Last Frontier— Papua New Guinea
Shikashika
Crux -- See the teaser below for my favorite of the films.
Under the Influence

Draper Temple Open House

Over a month ago I was on Facebook (shocking, I know) and I noticed that one friend's status said that she had just got reservations for the LDS Draper Temple open house. I didn't even know that they were available yet. But I quickly checked out lds.org and before I knew it I had reserved 10 tickets for the first day of the open house. I thought this would be a great activity for the singles FHE group that I belong to. I created an event on Facebook and invited a bunch of singles to attend. I was surprised at how fast the reservations were taken up. So I went back out to lds.org and reserved a few more tickets just in case. In the end I had 14 reservations and we ended up using the initial 10 that I reserved. I don't think it really mattered because no one checked for tickets or the number in our party. In any case I thought it was a great turn out!

The tour starts at one of many churches in the Draper area. There you watch a very short video about temples and why they are important to us as members of the LDS church. After the video we boarded buses and were shuttled to the temple.

The inside of the temple (as well as the outside) is beautiful as you would expect. Things that seemed to strike me were the use of naturally stained wood and lots of it. The whole temple seems to have more a nature feel to me. The furnishing seemed to be quite modern compared to what I expected but at the same time the were very classic. It seemed quite small compared to some of the other local temples but then again I'm not sure how much of it we really saw. All in all, it is a very beautiful temple. I'll be interested in going back once the open house is over but that is not for another two months I believe.

I took a camera and meant to take photos but you cannot take photos inside the temple and the whole time you are outside the temple you are in a heated series of tents. The only chance for a photo of the temple would have been from the bus. Oh well, these photos from the church's website will have to suffice.

After the tour most of us went to Applebees for a late dinner or desert.

Waiting Room

Decor Detail

Art Glass with Sego Lily Motif

Ordinance Room

Ordinance Room

Celestial Room

Celetial Room Ceiling Detail

Bride's Dressing Room

Sealing Room

Art Glass Window

Side note: The art glass through out the temple was done by my good friend's (Gayle Terry Holdman) husband's (Tom Holdman) shop.

Those attending: Me, Jaree, Molly, Kristine, Melissa, Lindsay, Mitch, Anna, Heather, & Marianne.

The Lights: Look How They Shine for You

Thursday night several friends and I piled into my car and drove to Salt Lake City to visit Temple Square. After getting a little nourishment at Olive Garden we walked a few blocks to see the sights. Downtown was all a buzz with The Nutcracker, a Jazz game, the Kurt Bestor Christmas concert, and surely other festivities.

Temple square was pretty and the weather was pretty nice. Even though snow would have made it pretty, it was also nice to not have to deal with that. We wandered around Temple Square and the Main Street Plaza seeing the nativities from around the world, the luminaries, and all the lights. And after lots of photos we headed over to the cafe in the Joseph Smith building for some hot chocolate and to warm up. After downing the big hot chocolate, the walk to the car was anything but cold. It was a great evening. Thanks for the idea Linds!

FHE - Rock Band

This week we had family home evening at my house because the guy who was supposed to host it had a hot date. (At our age, that's a legit excuse.) So I had to come up with something quick. Rock Band always seems to be a crowd pleaser and Nick was generous enough to let me borrow his system and the game. (Thanks Nick!) Rock Band at FHE was a hit. We had 14 people as opposed to the normal 6 to 8. We had a few new people visiting FHE for the first time. It's always great to meet new people. The more the merrier, right? And of course there were drinks and snacks. Can't forget those. Here's some of the action photos.

General Conference: Priesthood Session

We have a tradition in our family when it comes to conference time. The priesthood holders that can, get together and attend the session in our old stake center. Following which we go to dinner at Bajio in Riverwoods. It's a nice tradition. This year those in attendance were my father, brother, 3 nephews, and a nephew's friend. We missed having Josh with us. He used to be a regular until he moved to Washington.

There was a little special treat for us during conference. President Monson told a story about Theron Borup. Everyone in our group kind of did a head whip to look at my dad. It's not that often that you hear the name Borup and generally when we do it is someone that is related to us. Dad confirmed that Theron is his cousin and that he worked in personnel for many years at the church office building. I had never heard the story before but Dad had.

Oh and about the bow tie... I had to try and compete with all the attention that Nick was going to get with his magician-looking mustache. Yeah, I failed miserably.

Monkey Boy Baptism

Last Saturday I got to spend the day in Kaysville for a special family occasion. My youngest nephew turned 8 years old last month. This month he was baptized and confirmed a member of the LDS Church. He was very excited about it all. He looked quite handsome in his nice suit. Although it's not the typical baptism photo shown above, it's pretty typical for him. :)

Oh, and he was only barefoot the for the pole climbing.

Meet the Mormons

Today I was reading my regular subscription to Lifehacker. They often have handy tips and other great information for day to day life. Today I was reading Get the Most Out of Your New Town. I thought it was pretty interesting. Here were their main suggestions:

1. Get a local phone number.
2. Subscribe to the local paper
3. Get a map
4. Check out the local restaurants
5. Find the local activities

But here's where it really caught my attention. The section was entitled Jesus and Wine. The title alone was interesting but then it listed a website called meetup.com where you can find connections with other people similar to you in the area. Here's my favorite quote from the article:

Be it beer or wine; darts, dirt or dreams; Mormons, Wiccans or atheists; or whether you're a Republican, Democrat, independent or Libertarian, there's little more than booze, religion and politics that can help you feel right at home again.

Really?! "Mormons, Wiccans or atheists"? It just makes me think that whoever was creating that list has no idea (or at least some preconceived idea as to) what a Mormon really is.

Plus really, have the Mormons ever been hard to find?! They're always knocking on your door. :)

Seriously, So Blessed!

Lindsay, I finally checked out Seriously, so Blessed! You were right! It is HIL-AR-IOUS! I'm only sorry that I didn't check it out sooner.

For everyone else, "Seriously, so Blessed!" is a blog by a fictitious young newlywed Mormon sister who has the perfect life and wants to share it with the world on her blog. It's only funny if you know someone who is like this. But don't worry I'm sure you know someone that's a match. It's like Legally Blonde for Mormons.

"She" also has some funny t-shirts available to buy. (http://www.seriouslysoblessed.com/t-shirts.html) Here are a couple of them. Unfortunately they are only available in women's sizes. I would buy the Diet Coke one.

LDS Church and Facebook?

Apparently there has been a rumor circulating about the LDS Church possibly purchasing Facebook. Have you ever heard a more absurd rumor? I'm mean really! What would the church want Facebook for? Some kind of covert online proselyting? What's even more funny is that KSL felt the need to report that the rumor was not true.

KSL: LDS Church answers rumors about buying Facebook