As Bill was planning our trip to national parks, he wanted us to stay overnight in Ogden to be closer to our destination the next day, Grand Teton National Park. He left time for us to tour SLC as we passed through. Little did he know that a stop in SLC would be crucial so we could have our broken computer looked at. When it broke down, we discovered that SLC had the only Apple Store for hundreds of miles around. So the focus of our stop became the appointment with a computer guru in SLC rather than touring around. Luckily, we were able to do both.
We arrived in SLC around noon and had some difficulty finding the visitor center, mainly because of poor signage. The sign on the highway indicated the proper exit, and our gps got us to the tabernacle area, but once there we saw no signs for a visitor center. Somehow we ended up near the Temple Square, so knew we had to find a place to park. Long story short, we ended up in a parking lot with numbered spaces but nowhere to pay. We were going to leave, but asked a woman walking nearby for help and she not only showed us how to pay at a large box at the corner of the lot but also guided us to the Mormon Square. She is a sister in the Mormon faith who works at the Family History Library. Once in the Mormon Square, we were surrounded by two visitor centers, one only a week old, the temple (photo #1), the tabernacle (photo #2), and the conference building and several other buildings. The square consists of 35 acres. The lawns were green and beautiful and the flower gardens and flowers hanging in abundance along a wall (photo #3) were gorgeous. The sisters are walking all around and if one is free, she will act as a guide and docent. We were allowed in the tabernacle which seats about 5000, but not in the temple as it is considered sacred. The older visitor center had numerous large paintings of the life of Jesus on the first floor. The second floor was accessed by walking a wide carpeted curving walkway up to where there is an eleven foot sculpture of Jesus Christ in the center of a room. (photo #4) The walls up the walkway and the walls and ceiling in the room depict the universal heavens with Jesus in front of the planet Earth and other planets and stars all around. It’s awe inspiring.
The newest visitor center contains the latest in technology to show exactly how the temple is designed, with a baptism room, garden room, sanctuary, etc. There are also many interactive displays.
When we entered the conference building, which seats 21,000, we learned that there would be an organ recital in two minutes so we hurried to a large auditorium with a 7,708 pipe organ and were able to hear the first part of the program, but had to leave in order to get to the computer store for our appointment. It broke my heart to leave, because I love organ music, but I was thrilled to have at least had the chance to see the Temple Square and some of the 16 buildings there.
Our faithful gps got us to the Apple Store which was only about five minutes away. We expected that there would be many people in the store, as is always the case, but were shocked to see close to 100 customers milling around. Thank goodness Bill had made the appointment! After a short wait, the computer was looked at and declared dead and we were assigned to a salesperson. "Little Joe", as he said his family calls him, was a 29 year old who was as tall as Bill. He told us the store employs over 200 people, 65 of which are on the floor every day. We knew the computer we wanted and Joe efficiently got everything processed, so we were on our way to Ogden without a huge delay.
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