Making a Memory

Posted by Shelah | August 10, 2009 | 16 Comments

Twenty-one years ago this August, I stood at the gates of the Salt Lake temple for the first time. I was thirteen, visiting Utah as a tourist, and totally obsessed with the brides and their photographers, perched in nooks and alcoves and on steps in every corner of the temple. My sister and I ran around the iron gates, comparing brides, trying to decide which one was the prettiest. I wrote in my journal that night that I wanted to be married in the Salt Lake temple. Ten months later my family joined the church. Eight years after that, I was a bride posing on the temple steps.

My husband can’t remember the first time he visited Temple Square, but his first memorable visit came when he was ten years old, attending Spencer W. Kimball’s funeral in the tabernacle. The next day he returned to school, where several of his classmates told him that they’d seen him on television. His fifteen minutes of fame came early in life.

Today I took my kids to Temple Square for their first visit. As we walked past places from my memory: the corner where we stood the one time we waited in the freezing cold for the Christmas lights to turn on, the spot in the balcony where I watched the BYU Men’s chorus sing, the statues near the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the conversation I had with a friend about their abnormally low BMIs, I kept wondering what kinds of memories my kids were making of their first Temple Square experience. Would they remember their mom swearing as she tried to find a parking space (and then parallel parking)? Running with their cousins from diorama to diorama? Throwing pennies in all of the fountains? Trying to make the loudest echoes in the dome surrounding the Christus? Undoubtedly, my four-year-old will remember that we all left the Visitor’s Centere without him and were halfway down the street before we realized he wasn’t with us (in our defense, when you’re traveling with eight kids, it’s not as noticeable when one goes missing).

Whatever memories my kids take away from today, I’m confident that they’ll be just the beginning of many memories of Temple Square. What are your fondest, favorite and funniest Temple Square memories?

Category: Daily Special

Comments

16 Responses to “Making a Memory”

wonder woman
August 10th, 2009 @ 8:36 am

My husband proposed to me on Temple Square. At the Joseph and Emma statue. (We’re from Kansas, so it wasn’t as cliche as it sounds!) That would definately be my fondest Temple Sqaure memory.
Amira
August 10th, 2009 @ 9:21 am

My favorite memories of Temple Square are from the year we lived a block away from it. My youngest son was born while we lived there, and while my older boys were at scouts, I’d walk around Temple Square with the baby in the wrap. Babies in wraps are common here in Seattle, but in Salt Lake, they’re still pretty new, so I’d get stopped over and over when the missionaries and service couples would ask about it. We also liked to find missionaries from interesting countries and did a couple of geography lessons there. I loved watching the plants and flowers grow and change from season to season. That was unquestionably one of the best of the many places we’ve lived, and a lot of what made it great was living close to the temple.

I didn’t go inside the temple very often that year, between being pregnant and having a new baby, so it was lovely to be able to spend so much time near the temple.
Melissa M.
August 10th, 2009 @ 9:46 am

One December we took our children up to Salt Lake the week before Christmas and spent the night in a hotel. After eating a yummy dinner at the top of the Joseph Smith Building, where we could look out over Temple Square all lit up like a fairy land (oh, the view!), we bundled up in our coats and scarves and spent the evening walking around Temple Square, looking at all of the lovely lights, the snow, the Nativity scene, the festive crowds. We walked through the Visitors’ Centers (a nice break from the bone-chilling cold)and ended up at the Christus statue, where we were reminded of the true purpose of Christmas. Afterwards we rode the Trax back to our hotel. It was a grand adventure for our children and a wonderful little getaway and a great way to kick off the Christmas season. I wish we’d done it more than once.
Strollerblader
August 10th, 2009 @ 10:25 am

I have lots of fond memories of Temple Square. When I was little with my family — especially the Family Home Evening show with the moving mannequins that they used to have. In college, with lots of great friends. Freezing or getting nearly trampled to death for the Christmas lights. Concerts in the Tabernacle. First Night while my in-utero 1st baby danced to the bagpipe band. My best friend’s wedding. My bro’s 1st wedding. Going to Conference (or sitting on the lawn) when I was in college. My parent’s mission at the COB, and their ward which included Pres. Hinckley and Faust and George Dyer. Lots and lots of memories with lots and lots of people.
~j.
August 10th, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

In the spring of ’97, my husband (then my new fiance) and I got into the assembly hall for the Saturday afternoon session of conference, and at the last minute, were among a small group ushered in to the tabernacle. I took a photo of the first presidency and then was quickly told that I wasn’t allowed to do that. That session, Elder Holland gave one of my favorite conference talks to-date: “Because She Is A Mother” (http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-64-16,00.html).
m&m
August 10th, 2009 @ 2:07 pm

Way back when, before the day of sister missionaries, my dad was a Temple Square tour guide. We used to go there for FHE and watch the little shows all by ourselves as a family. I LOVED that. I was proud that my dad was a volunteer there.

I also have countless memories of seeing the holiday lights. I love the lights!

And I got to sing in the Assembly Hall a time or two, and that was cool. And once in General Conference, something I will never forget.
FoxyJ
August 10th, 2009 @ 2:30 pm

We got married in Salt Lake and I honestly wished I hadn’t been vain about the pictures and just done Provo instead. It was two days before Thanksgiving and so insanely busy that it was hard to feel like it was a special day, both inside and outside the temple. We got married there since it was where my grandparents had been married, but it was just a bit too crazy for me.

I don’t have very many specific memories of Temple Square. Lots of visits to see the lights, walking around in the spring, etc.
Ronda
August 10th, 2009 @ 8:21 pm

Christmas eve, 6 years ago. I was newly divorced and trying to hold onto what was left of my eternal family: 2 children, one recently married in the SLC temple, and one figuring how and where to spread her wings. My daughter, her non-member friend from North Carolina, and I drove to SLC: dinner, buggy ride, fresh snow, fresh new life, serenity, peace, calm, all is well – particularly when standing near the handcart family by the Assembly Hall. I knew if they/my ancestors could make the trek to SLC and begin a new life, I could do likewise. I sense these same feelings when I look at the photos taken on this eve of Christ’s birth.
wendy
August 10th, 2009 @ 10:07 pm

Fondest memories: picture taking with dh when we were just dating (he loves photography and I loved fancying myself a photographer’s wife), being proposed to in one of the sealing rooms in the SL Temple on Valentine’s Day, honeymoon visits to TS, peaceful walks around TS as a single gal on lunch breaks when I worked nearby.

Least pleasant memory: NOT handling an active toddler who barely knew how to walk his first time on TS and really wanted down, icy sidewalks, tumbles, bloody lips, and when trying to keep him “safe,” practically falling on top of him due to slippery ice . . . and ultimately swearing on Temple Square. Some day it might be funny.
Sage
August 11th, 2009 @ 4:28 am

Wow! I didn’t realize how many memories I have from Temple Square. My first visits came in childhood–the dioramas being foremost in my memory, as well as getting to see a church film. We lived in California so it would have been during a visit to Grandma’s house. Later, while living in Utah as BYU students, my sister and I attended a Saturday session of conference. We were only able to sit outside and listen as the tabernacle was full. We were sitting back to back enjoying the sunshine. A Church News photographer took our picture and asked for our signatures on a release form. We were printed opposite Pres. Benson in the Church News!

Later I was married there by my uncle who was a sealer. That was almost 19 years ago! I also love the lights and the statues, the nativity, and the spirit that is so strong there.

In my ward we have a previously Jewish man who joined the church after visiting Temple Square. (We’re still hoping for his Catholic wife to join). Great place!!
Jenny
August 11th, 2009 @ 1:21 pm

Freshman year at BYU. My Parents were converts to the church when I was a child, and I never dreamed that I’d ever be able to attend a real-live conference session in the tabernacle! It was one of the most exciting days of my life to that point. We arrived almost four hours before the session to get in line, and we sat in the balcony on those old wooden benches. I didn’t mind the wait or the fact that the seats weren’t very comfortable. I just remember feeling so privileged to be able to actually step onto the square and then into the tabernacle to hear the prophet and his apostles speak. I’ve almost always lived SO far away from temple square, that any visit has been very special. Equally significant was the visit many years later, when we were able to bring our kids for the first time. Some of the same memories/thoughts because our kids were young, and there were so many of us, but we were able to overlook to noise and chaos and soak in the spirit. Thanks for reminding me of some great moments.
Jennie
August 11th, 2009 @ 1:29 pm

I remember visiting Temple Square for the first time when I was about 14. Seeing the Christus statue just struck me dumb. The whole Temple Square visit was one of the first spiritual experiences I remember having.
jendoop
August 11th, 2009 @ 3:01 pm

My high school is just blocks from temple square so my adolescence is peppered with temple square memories: YW activities to watch the videos which sprouted the seed of my testimony, taking a friend there(blindfolded) for his birthday, attending Pres. Benson’s birthday celebration with my first boyfriend, freezing toes and hands while seeing the lights, and even running through it to catch the bus (what can I say, I was a teenager and it was a shortcut).

I remember first doing baptisms for the dead there and being in awe of it all. Glimpsing through a closing door the beauty and ornate woodwork down the hallway that I wasn’t old enough to enter. Feeling truly beautiful and clean as we dressed and did our hair before leaving. It was so much that my home wasn’t, I knew that my spirit longed to stay and that I would do anything to be there more.

Seven years later I was there with my older sister who was going on a mission at the same time that I prepared to be married. Then a week later, our wedding. And yes, I give in to the corny sappiness and say that it was the best day of my life. Even though my Dad and other siblings weren’t able to be in the temple, a little bitter sweetness to it all.

Now that I live on the East Coast I realize what a special opportunity I had in living so close to the temple, to see it everyday. My children have been there just a few times, not nearly enough to feel the intimate connection I have with those sacred grounds.
Maddison
August 11th, 2009 @ 8:27 pm

Did anyone else catch that this blog post was mentioned in the Bloggernacle Back Bench: Temple Anniversary article today on Mormon Times? Pretty neat!

http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/emily_w_jensen/?id=10152
m&m
August 12th, 2009 @ 2:21 am

Another memory that Jennie’s comment brought to mind was seeing the Christus right after a man had come and vandalized it — he hit off the hands. I was a teenager, and I looked at the statue, and it was as though He was looking at His hands. I felt as though the Savior was just sad that someone would want to do that. It sounds a little corny, maybe, but I think that perception may have helped soften my heart a little about it all. It was really unnerving to see the damage and to think about why someone would want to do that.

Anyway, kind of random….
Zina
August 12th, 2009 @ 8:37 pm

How timely–we just took our kids to Temple Square today as part of a general goal to get my kids to temple grounds more often, since we’ve realized that it hasn’t been a part of our routine to do so. Today it was 97 degrees, so we mostly stayed in the northwest visitor center, and with all 5 wiggly kids along I wasn’t patient enough to let them to watch any entire videos, (not to mention that the 3-year-old and 5-year-old kept hitting the restart buttons for the videos anyway) so it was a somewhat abbreviated visit, and we hope to return in Fall when it’s cooler, and explore more at our leisure. (Our next stop was the Church History and Art museum across the street, where my kids enjoyed building temples with blocks and my 5-year-old, after playing with baby dolls in the “hospital nursery,” said, “I never want to leave. I want to live here.” I do think my kids enjoyed Temple Square despite the heat. My 12-year-old son said of the sky mural on the walls and ceiling around the Christus, “Someone had some real artistic ability.” When we stopped to talk to the sister missionaries, I pointed towards the temple and then towards my husband and said, “Thirteen years ago he and I were married over there. And now we have this to show for it” (indicating my five kids.)