Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love Temple Square. I have pleasant memories of time I spent there throughout my childhood and youth. I want my children to have a little bit of that too. We visited Temple Square and had a wonderful time.


A feeling of peace pervades this place. It is calm and beautiful. I feel God's love for me when I am there.


We enjoyed the Christus statue and the reminder of our Savior's love and infinite sacrifice for us.


The temple grounds are always so lovely. I love the flowers, grass, and trees there, coupled with the blue sky. It's a beautiful place. I wanted to get a photo of all my kids together. The girls appeased me...


Carter didn't.

Another favorite activity of the day was watching Book of Mormon stories in the visitors' center. We watched clips about Nephi's trust in God when he and his family were traveling in the wilderness and needed food. He sought God's direction about where to hunt and went to work to make a new bow and arrow after his original one broke.

We also liked the clip about the young men who fought valiantly to protect their families, people, and liberty. They trusted God completely because their mothers taught them to have faith in God.


This statue caught my attention because it captures and portrays motion. Joseph Smith was always in motion, he was always doing, working, producing, serving. I felt inspired to move forward and better serve others.


Lily got a kick out of this cool drinking fountain. You push the foot pedal on the bottom to get water. Cute Lily had to put both feet on the pedal and use all her body weight to make it work! Needless to say, she took several drinks from that fountain and then got a few more when we passed by it again later.


I served my mission in France and Belgium. I found a soeur Francaise (a French sister missionary) serving on Temple Square and absolutely loved speaking with her in French. I love France and speaking French, but don't have the opportunity very often. So this was a treat. At the end of our conversation, this soeur sincerely thanked me for serving in her country. I honestly can't express how that touched me. If you served in France, you can understand why that meant so much.


As we stood on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, I told the kids again about their great, great....grandpa from their daddy's side of the family who manned the crane that placed the statue on top of the Salt Lake Temple spire after it was built. The kids always love hearing that story. Hearing it again while seeing the statue high on top of the temple, made it real and exciting to them.
This was a wonderful day. I was spiritually filled.

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

Great 'blog tour' of the SLC Temple! Did you take all those pics... except the cartoon clips? tee hee hee

Jilly Bean said...

I did so take those cartoon pictures, Cheryl! ;)

And, yes, I took the others too.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful post Jill!

Shapiro said...

I love all of your pictures and posts Jilly Bean! It was fun to see Kelly in those pics too... and an old friend Lis Breinholt! at the shower! And about these lacking opportunities to practice french...hmmm mmm....
Nous pouvons parler ensemble aussi tu sais! :)
Practiquons alors! :) Vive les amis franco-belges!(okay... franco-belges-americains!) :)