A Tour of Temple Square!

Hey y’all! I’m still catching up on things that I did in the past few weeks, if you missed my other 2 posts ( ) make sure to go and check them out 🙂

The next thing I did this month was visit Temple Square with Lauren! We left school early to go and see an organ recital for our orchestra concert report. They have recitals almost every day at the Tabernacle and they’re totally free. Plus now that some flowers are actually blooming it’s even more beautiful than usual.

Not only was the recital amazing (I’ll input a video of one part below), the tabernacle itself is so cool. It was built in 1864 right next to the temple in a specific dome-shape which makes it extremely sensitive to sound, the organist did a demonstration and you can literally hear a pin drop from anywhere in the room. It’s also where the famous (like actually, internationally award winning) Mormon Tabernacle Choir (which we lovingly refer to as the Mo Tab) started. It also has one of the world’s best organs with 11, 623 pipes.

After the tabernacle we headed into the Assembly Hall, a Victorian Gothic style building where the church used to have meeting back in the olden days, and the detail was beautiful. It also has an organ too.  The benches are super close together because people were clearly much shorter back then.

Next was the best part, the temple itself. We didn’t go in because we weren’t dressed or ready for that (plus the SLC temple is so booked- I’ve never even been inside it). We took some pictures by the doors which I love- the temple took 40 years to build and was done completely by hand, it’s the most gorgeous building I’ve ever seen. Plus there’s always cute couples taking wedding pictures and gah my heart! Especially since its the temple that my parents got married in 🙂

Right next to the temple is the Reflection Pool where I actually saw a bride fall in while taking a picture once which was crazy, but it’s super pretty.

The last place that we went is the Conference Center that is just across the street! It is the largest theater-style auditorium in the world (and thought to be the biggest ever built) and it seats 21,000 people. This is where General Conference is held twice each year and is broadcasted to the rest of the world, the next one is actually next week and I’m really excited! I love hearing from the Prophet and apostles.

The rest of the conference center is basically filled with paintings, one hallway is from bible and Book of Mormon stories and the other one is a portrait of literally every prophet and apostle in the history of the church.

And then my personal favorite part, is the roof! When we got up there and were getting out of the elevator and there was this group of boys our age all dressed up super nice, right? And our tour guide guy goes, “Look ladies, there’s a bunch of guys all for you” So naturally, Lauren and I are like, “Ayy this is great, hi” all of the guys like smiled at us and then this one kid starts clapping. Just clapping as we walk by and I was laughing so hard. His friend asked him why he was and all he said was, why not xD  Anyways, the roof is the best part for multiple reasons.

1. Amazing side view of the temple
2. Lots of Aspen trees
3. There’s a giant fountain that has paths across the whole thing
4. Each corner of the roof is planted/designed to match that part of Utah! So the South has drier plants, the northeast has more pine trees, etc. It’s so cool.
5. There’s a mural that is literally etched into this granite with a quote from the Doctrine and Covenants that says, “And this gospel shall be preached unto every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” with a picture of real people who came to Utah from tons of different countries and cultures. I hope you liked this mini tour of temple square, I’ll have to go to take more pictures once even more flowers have bloomed!

Let me know down below if it seems like something you’d like to visit! Love y’all! -Aspen AKA The Author

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Youth Conference

Hey y’all, I feel like I’ve been gone forever, but it’s really been less than a month. March has been absolutely crazy for me, but it has also been one of the best months I’ve had all year.

First there was prom and then Lauren made me my favorite cake- lemon with raspberry anyone? I could seriously eat the cake she makes the rest of my life.)

The same day, Ry and I left for Youth Conference (basically a conference/activity thing for boys and girls age 14+ in my ward at church). This year we stayed overnight in cabins up at a place in the mountains called Aspen Grove, I got to make so many jokes it was great. Guys, you have no idea how much fun I had this trip. The first night we went to a devotional where Madilyn Paige spoke (If you don’t know her, she was a singer on the Voice, and she is an absolute sweetheart, make sure you check her out!) She spoke all about our theme which was Do good, See good, Be good, and all about self-confidence and relying on God.

After the devotional we had a dance with a bunch of different wards from all over the state and it was bomb! The DJ was great and everyone was actually getting into it and not being lame. Also, my little brother FINALLY danced with me and it was adorable! We found this guy who my friends were all obsessed with, and he was really fun, but the main point is that they were legit stalking him and it was hilarious.

After the dance we headed back to our rooms for the after party to listen to the other songs we wanted to (because they apparently “weren’t appropriate” for a church dance. Okay, they weren’t, but still. We partied for a bit more and then Ry and I went to our own room (because I was sick and didn’t want to cough all night and keep everyone awake). We talked til about 2 am and man I really missed spending time with her, it was great 🙂

The next morning at breakfast, a girl in my ward got a napkin folded into a rose and when we asked her what was on it, she was like, “oh just some numbers” And let’s just say I almost died I was laughing so hard when she realized what she said. After breakfast we played some team building games where we had a partner and had to get in certain positions, like jumping on each other’s backs, or crawling under them, etc. And it was so so funny to watch.

The last thing we did, was go SNOWSHOEING! (Or cross-country skiing, but I was sick so I chose snowshoeing). The view was breathtaking from the top of the mountains, I love the outdoors. On the way down we found this wooden arch with a sign that says, “Fort Aspen”, and I thought a picture was necessary 🙂

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! Like I said, March was crazy for me, and as my blog is kind of an online journal for me there will be 2 more posts in the really near future. I decided to just split them all up to avoid making a super large post and so that it’s easier to find when I’m looking back.

P.S. I’m sorry for all the update posts, they’re probably boring to all of you, if you have any ideas of posts you’d want to do just comment down below!

Love y’all! -Aspen AKA The Author

Prom

Hey y’all! How is everyone doing? I am currently sick so I decided to opt out of school today to rest. (Sidenote: I started writing this on Monday, it’s Wednesday now but I’m still home sick. Okay well I’m a failure so it’s now Thursday)  This week was absolutely crazy for me.  On Tuesday I took the ACT which actually wasn’t too bad, I think I did decent but not great. I guess we’ll see when I get my scores back.

On Wednesday I had interviews for this surgical technology program. Basically its really hard to get into and I get my letter saying if I got in or not at the end of March. In the beginning 80 people applied and we all took some tests, from that they took 40 for interviews. The interview itself lasted 4 hours, it was crazy. I ended up being in the last bunch of people along with Ryann, and we actually made some new friends! All in all, even if I didn’t get in, it was a good experience.

On Friday for our pre-prom date thing we went to Airborne which is a trampoline place, and it was super fun! The boys tried the American Ninja Warrior thing and at first Bex’s bf got the farthest but of course my date (who for anonymity reasons we’ll call Lewis, like C.S. Lewis…) had to one -up him because that’s just what best friends do xD  But they have a bunch of like obstacle rope stuff and trampolines you can jump off of into foam pits so it pretty legit. After that we went to dinner at this pizza place and then to one of the kids in our group houses to play games. We played ping pong and then one of my favorite card games Scum. I was Queen until the very end when Lewis beat me, but most of the time all of us were throwing M&M’s and making fun of each other.

Saturday was kind of crazy because my grandma was hemming my dress last minute. My young women’s leader and her little sister did my hair super cool and put baby’s breath in it. Ryann did my makeup because I’m helpless but it all turned out. Of course my mom insisted on taking a few pictures and then we were off.

Once we were with the whole gang, we drove up to the capitol to take some pictures and then ate dinner at this restaurant called The Garden which is at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was basically pretty fancy with a great view of the city and mainly the temple.

The dance itself which was in the capitol was great! Everybody my group was surprised that I knew all of the songs (apparently none of them grew up where I did. 2000’s trash hip hop was it back then) It was great to see everyone looking super hot in all of their fancy attire and to just dance around. On the very last song I almost kissed Lewis but like nope, the song ended plus my stomach had like a tornado in it.

After the dance we went back to Lewis’ house and on the way home we had a great conversation about bodies falling out of the back of a hearse on the highway, it was pretty funny. Once we got there we had brownies and ice cream with caramel and it was amazing. I also learned that Lewis has a bird named Yoshi that killed the other one… Lastly we played a card game called Exploding Kittens and I died about a million times.

Okay this has taken me forever to write so I am going to end it here. 

Love y’all! – Aspen AKA The Author