Last friday we were lucky enough to get to go to the first session of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Dedication. It was such a neat finish to the whole temple process we have been to. I almost felt like I was sending my kid to college or something...we spent so much time there I can't believe it is actually up and running! During the session President Monson mentioned to the church's project manager that he had worked tirelessly on this building for a couple years and today they are taking it away from him for good and giving it to the Lord. That is almost exactly how we felt- it was very strange to think we couldn't just head on over with the boys any time we pleased! I guess if you have to give it to someone...

We got to sit in the largest sealing room on the 4th floor- Kent's second favorite room in the building, so that was really special for us and we were accompanied by Kents brother and his wife. It also happened to be President Monson's birthday- he is 82. So I am going to say we spent his birthday with him!?!

What a blessing we have to be so close to so many temples. Within an hour we can get to 8 temples. We happen to live in the only city in the world where there are 2 temples. What an amazing opportunity for us to serve and strengthen. I can't wait to get back to work!

Topping off the Temple

SO hopefully I will become a little better at blogging, but I am having computer woes, so we will see...
Anyway, about a month ago, we were able to participate in the topping off of the temple. They lifted the HUGE steeple onto the building first ( it was estimated to weigh just over 17,000 lbs and ended up actually weighing over 30,000), which was a little stressful because they were a little nervous that the crane wouldn't hold it after all. I guess the superintendent hadn't slept in about a week because he was worried. It was really neat to see it go up and be a little nervous until it was secured. We headed over at about 7:30 in the morning and set up camp looking like this...
a bunch of the families of the workers were there and so I had some company, which turned out really well when by 10:00 they still hadn't finished securing the tower into place. By the time they finally started lifting the tower, most of the workers had come over to sit with their families and watch (pray). Unfortunately, Kent was no where to be found. I was watching out for him when I saw this...

You may have to enlarge it to figure out why I posted this picture... there is a tall man with a cream, black, and red shirt that is standing on the left corner with a white hard hat on. Yup- that is why Kent hadn't come to watch... he wanted a closer look and decided he should help bolt down the tower. I know it doesn't look that huge from the picture, but he is just standing on steel beams about 200 feet in the air with no harness or safety on at all. All of a sudden I recognized that shirt and then I was REALLY nervous! Kent thought it was so cool to be up and part of that, and he has a rip in his jeans to remember it by.
It took another 2 hours to finally get moroni ready to fly. By that time there were people everywhere outside the gates and the news helicopter was flying around. It was really exciting. I took a really cool video of it happening, but I didn't know you can't rotate video from our camera so it is worthless. Plus it took forever. Sorry not to share. but we got some great pictures...up he goes....

and here he is! It was an amazing feeling and even got a little more emotional about it than I thought I would. What a great experience!
Some of the funny things about the thing...

I was amazed at how detailed moroni is for being 200 feet in the air... His hair is perfect! He even has dimples on his cheeks from where he is blowing his horn. Tyse and Emitt know that his name is moroni, but I don't know how to explain much more about his role on top of the temple than that.
Kent took a picture of his fist next to Moronis to try to get a scale type shot. It turned out that it just looks like they are bumpin knuckles. I guess Moroni is now our buddy.

Imagine driving down the freeway one day and passing this....
This is how they brought Moroni to the jobsite. I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect to see him tied down to any old flatbed being towed behind a joe schmoe truck. Just a 12 foot moroni. Crusin down the freeway. Hmmm.