This weekend we took the young women up to see the lights and tour around the square. After a stop for greasy pizza we were on the hunt for a parking space in downtown SLC (not such an easy feat at Christmas now that the two malls have been torn down). Finally we found success at the Salt Palace and meandered our way over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We were meeting up with the rest of the group, including the young men and the bishopric, who had all been unfortunately (at least for them) waiting for us for quite a while. They had much quicker success with the whole parking situation and since none of us were smart enough to exchange cell numbers we had been listed as MIA. Finally we were reunited and just in time to make the 3:00 showing of the Joseph Smith movie. I believe that this was my third time seeing the movie, and it has always been quite moving but was even more poignant for me this time. In the last week I've been bitten by the genealogy bug again and have spent endless hours searching the Internet for any personal history of a relative of mine. I've only been able to find one, for Martha Payne Jones (married to Daniel Stillwell Thomas) however it was a very moving account. They were living in Far West at the time the saints were driven out and her story of that time was emotional to read. To watch these events unfold in the movie struck me even deeper than before because I was envisioning what my own family had experienced. My great, great great grandfather was born just a few days after the family crossed the river and is listed as being born "in the woods". It was fun to watch the girls experience the message of the movie as well. It turned out that none of them had seen it before. Since it wasn't dark enough for the lights to be on we decided to take a tour of the Beehive house. I always enjoy going through historical homes, and it was doubly fun to see how excited some of the girls got about walking through rooms that Brigham Young had actually walked through and seeing the furniture and clothing they had worn. After an hour of walking through the lights we all split up and headed home. Getting out of downtown was easier said than done. The traffic was a nightmare with a concert starting at the Conference Center and the normal holiday bustle, not to mention all the police activity. We were headed down State St. and when we noticed all the police cars our Young Women's president jokingly said it must be a bomb. Well not five minutes later the bomb squad van turns left right in front of us. After we got past that area we were still on the search for hot chocolate, a lot harder than you think to find but I have now made a mental note that there is a 7-Eleven on the corner of 8 S and West Temple. It felt good to get out of all that mess!
