Salt Lake City Cemetery & Temple Square

I really loved this activity. Jimmy had taken a tour of this cemetery with his team at work. He found a map that showed where many church leaders were buried.

We saw the gravesites of Wilford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith, Gordon B. Hinckley, Spencer W. Kimball, Howard W. Hunter, John Taylor, Heber J. Grant. We found Truman O. Angell – Architect of the SLC Temple & Jimmy’s former Stake President, Truman G. Madsen (who died when I was pregnant with Truman – Hence we thought of that name).

James E. Talmage had an interesting story behind his gravestone. He had a theory about the difference between the granite and limestone and thus he designed his gravestone. “His gravestone at the Salt Lake City Cemetery is an unusual geological phenomenon, a “xenolith” (rock within a rock)—dark limestone engulfed in granite.”

Spencer W. Kimball had 2 huge pieces of petrified wood by his grave, reminiscent of his Arizona youth.

It was also sweet to think of the dear wives of these prophets… brave and faithful women, indeed.
After the cemetery, we got a bite to eat at City Creek and walked over to temple square. As we walked out of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, an Asian woman was smiling so big and had her video camera filming our family. She seemed so delighted at our comical family. Luckily, everyone was well-behaved at that moment. The kids had just spied the temple all light up in the night sky. They loved it.

We went over to the visitor’s center to see the Christus. Abraham especially loves hearing the scriptures read up there. Max recognized the echo in that room and said, “I – LOVE – JES-US – AND – HE – LOVES – ME.” Or something like that. ‘Liza picked up on the echo and started squawking. We zipped out of there so quickly since our kids started making so much noise. Ay-Ay-Ay!

We got everyone in bed a little late but it was a fun evening together as a family.