It's about time!

One day last year, my neighbor gave my boys a ride home from school, and she was talking about Temple Square. They told her that they had never been to Temple Square, and that they didn't even know what it was. (It was true! I'm so embarrassed. They've never even been to the Christmas lights!) So after she gave me a mini-lecture, I resolved to make one of our Fun Fridays into a Temple Square/church history day.

We started with a tour of the Conference Center. Our tour guide was a young man who was serving on Temple Square as a part-time mission, because health problems prevented him from serving a full-time mission. He was wonderful -- he told us so many interesting things about the Conference Center and Temple Square, and he was great with the boys! Then we walked around Temple Square and went in the visitors' center, the Tabernacle, and the Assembly Hall. We ate lunch at the Nauvoo Cafe inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. And we finished at the Museum of Church History. (We were there on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum, pretty interesting, and emotional for me.)

When I told Caleb what our Fun Friday was going to be, he moaned and groaned and whined and said it was going to be the most boring day ever. At the end of the day, he was the first one to tell me he had been wrong, and that it was the "most awesome Fun Friday ever!" The boys were SO good and I'm thrilled that they loved it so much!

We loved the view of Temple Square from the roof of the Conference Center!

Wow! A front-row seat at Conference!

When we were turning to walk out of the auditorium, Nathan asked, "Why do we feel like we need to talk quietly in this room?" Our guide explained to him that it is a dedicated building, and we could feel the Spirit in the room, which made us want to be reverent. It was so neat, to be there and know that my kids experienced that feeling!

When we got to the top of the ramp in the north visitors' center, the three older boys walked in very quietly, and all sat down together without saying a word. After a minute, I decided to take a picture, so I could remember how neat this moment was!

The Salt Lake Temple is pretty darn special to me. Not only were Ryan and I married there, but so were my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents. When my great-great grandparents were married, the temple wasn't finished yet, so they were married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake. It was a very emotional thing, for me to be there with my boys. Thank you to my neighbor, for shaming me into planning this trip, LOL!