Salt Lake City Adventures

I had the opportunity to go to General Conference live for 3 of the 4 sessions this weekend. I went with some friends on Saturday and we listened to conference in the tabernacle for the first session, then after that we decided to go beg for tickets and see if anyone had any extras. To my surprise, within about 30 seconds of holding up a sign that said "tickets" we had all we needed, and the same thing happened for both sessions today. It was pretty sweet, I must say. I didn't know so many people ran around temple square with extra conference tickets. The protesters sort of made me laugh...they come up with the weirdest things to yell at us. One guy was screaming about how we shouldn't try to be like Joe Smith and take rabbits out of hats, because it's of the devil, and another guy was saying something about it being wrong to dress up as the Pillsbury Dough Boy. ???? For real, where do they even come UP with things like that? At least the people telling us to read the Bible made more sense, even though it might have been good for them to do some research and learn that we do read the Bible. It was pretty cool though, because a lot of time, while the people were yelling at us, members would line up along the sidewalks and sing hymns. It's interesting to me, I wonder if those people read the Bible. If they do, they must have missed the verse that says "By their fruits ye shall know them", unless, of course, they think screaming at people that they're going to hell is good fruit...

Anyway, conference was very good, as it always is. When I was younger, I used to wish that I could hear Joseph Smith speak, because he was such an amazing prophet and such, but I realize now that President Hinckley was and President Monson is every bit the man that Joseph Smith was. I'm so thankful that we have him to guide us and help us. It was amazing every time he walked into the room for conference, the entire room of 50,000 people instantly got silent and stood on their feet till he sat down. I love seeing the respect and reverence the church has for the prophet. I have never, ever in my life seen so many people get quiet so quickly. I'm not sure if there is anything that makes me love the church more than General Conference does. There's something about seeing and hearing the prophet speak that is really powerful, I can't really describe it. All I can say is that I know it's true, without a doubt in my mind.

So I don't think that I was allowed to take pictures...but I did anyway because I turned my flash off and that's the main reason they don't want people taking pictures anyway. I don't think President Monson would like to be blinded while trying to give a talk. Just a guess.

It was pretty funny on the drive home, because at almost any point between Salt Lake City and Provo, I could look out the window and see at least 3 chapels and a temple. At one point, I could see 8 chapels and 2 temples. Crazy, huh? I thought so. That's not exactly something you see in Minnesota very often. :P