Visiting Temple Square

 

A friend came to visit Salt Lake recently and while thinking of the many different places to show him around town Temple Square was on the MUST-DO list. On the way to Temple Square we stopped by Brigham Young's grave site which is only about a block away. While trying to explain to this friend who is buried there and why all the last names were Young = a lot of his wives were buried there which brought on the awkward discussion on Polygamy and then I thought: "Boy this isn't only hard to explain but it is also hard to wrap my head around it now"

Temple Square itself it was fun; it was the middle of a Saturday so it was fun to watch Brideappalooza going on and the bustle of all the weddings going on. I didn't take many pictures but one of the statutes there called my attention, Joseph and Emma Smith--I'm sure I've seen it before but hadn't really paid attention before. I'm sure there's plenty of meaning to this statute and it paints a picture of perfection in many ways (perfect man, perfect woman, perfect marriage, etc).

I really don't want to get all anti-Mormon here--it really isn't my gig, I just found it odd--and maybe a little ironic that while there's a statue of of Joseph and Emma smack in the middle of the plaza, Eliza R Snow who was allegedly one of Joseph Smith's polygamist wives and then became one of Brigham Young's polygamist wives is buried about a block away--in another lifetime the thought would have probably never crossed my mind. However, nowadays with all of the attention that the LDS Church is getting with the Republican Presidential candidate and people searching to learn about the Mormon Church it occurs to me just how are the leaders going to deal with all of the "non-official" history that is really out there for the world to see.

Still, we had a good visit at Temple Square and walked over to the new City Creek mall where I saw a gay couple holding hands and more than a few tattooed folks and it was no big deal--at least not to anyone I was observing at the time. I guess my point here is that there are a lot of things in my life that are changing. Some affect me in lots of ways, some have not affected me in a long time and there are those that every now and then I discover in unexpected ways.

I guess it is called life...