Salt Lake Temple; my Mom's memories

While driving to Salt Lake with my mom during our Fall Break visit, I enjoyed hearing the memories she had of Salt Lake and the temple. I asked her to write down her memories and her feelings about this wonderful place.

Here is what she shared with me:

The Salt Lake Temple holds a special place in my heart. As a young teenager, our family took a trip west in our car. That was before car air conditioners. We sat in the back seat with plastic on the floor and a block of ice to chip away at and stick our feet on to say cool. There was no car radio, so we sand some of Dad's favorites, In the Crust of the Odd Apple Pie, Let me call you Lizzy, Peanut sitting on the rail road track, In the Good Old summertime, leap frog, Barnacle bill the Sailor, (insert a name) where are you going, more commonly known as the bath tub song.. We counted trees, cars of different colors, road signs, read Burma Shave road signs, dad would tell his jokes. We visited Salt Lake City. We stayed in a motel there, and then took the tour of Temple square. I remember asking about going into that beautiful temple. It really bothered me that I couldn't go in the temple. I wanted to see it. The guide explained that not even every member of the church could go in. This puzzled and fascinated me. The next year in school, our English teacher had us write and essay about where we would want to go and what we would want to do if we only had 24 hours left to live. My entire essay was all about the Salt Lake Temple. I was drawn to it.

When we joined the church in 1970, at a Relief Society meeting, the President said to hang a picture of the temple up in each of your children's rooms. I looked in the church magazine and found an article about the Salt Lake Temple. It had a large Black and white picture that had a couple's hands clasped in front of the Salt Lake Temple. This hung in Corin's room. When she went to BYU, she met and fell in love with that handsome wonderful John. John's family lived in Dallas, where the new Dallas Temple was. Corin insisted on being married in the Salt Lake Temple. My Response to her was. "Dad and I will fly out for the wedding". Her response to me was, "NO, I want the whole family there." So we ALL went. Shannon and Kelly carried the lacy train all around the temple grounds for photo shoots; Reed declared after the wedding that this was where he wanted to be married some day. Corin's righteous insistence that all of us come proved to be a great blessing to our whole family. It was 30 years after I had first seen the Salt Lake Temple when I went though it with Corin when she received her endowments and when she was married. Each temple marriage was a unique and wonderful experience.
When we were sealed in 1974, in Manti (that was the temple district for the stake we lived in while living in Kansas), we also went to Provo, then up to Salt Lake City. While attending a Salt Lake Temple session, Elder Stephen (The missionary who taught us back in Del Rio, Texas) was in that session!

I attended General Conference with Corin and John for the100th anniversary of the Salt Lake Temple. We sat on the temple grounds on a blanket with Baby Julia!

For Shannon's 23rd birthday, we attended the temple in Salt Lake. That night she discovered she was pregnant with Kaylee.

I have had the pleasure of going to the salt Lake temple several times with Kelly.

I have had the pleasure of doing temple square tours with special members of my family. Julia, Jadey, and Corin's family.

It holds a very special place in my heart. Miracles happen there. I treasure the experience each time I go.