General Conference October 5, 2008

The first weekend in October, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints all over the world gather to hear the words of the General Authorities of the church, living prophets and apostles, at General Conference. Conference is held at the magnificent Conference Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah and brings people from far and wide to worship – a Mormon Mecca of sorts.

If you’d like a breath of fresh air and much needed perspective with all that’s going on in the world, you’re welcome to watch Conference online at www.lds.org. So far we have been spiritually nourished by messages of Christ, gratitude, living now, unity, faith and encouragement. Transcripts will be available next week at www.lds.org.

Church History Museum August 17, 2008

This week, Tim and I had a chance to be chaperons at Youth Conference.  Our first day, we had a National Treasure hunt that started at the Church History Museum on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  Here are some of our favorite memories:

Holding onto the Iron Rod on the path to the Tree of Life.  L to R: Candice, Tim, Quinton, Brady, Liz & our resident Brazilian, Manuel.

Brady standing next to a replica of the framing of the Salt Lake City tabernacle supporting the impressive roof without any pillar support – a whopping 9 feet across!

One of the highlights of the visit was spent in the kids area.  Here they are rubbing the CTR symbol in multiple languages including Arabic, Korean and Cambodian.

My impressive rubbing skills.

Liz, me & Candice sitting in chairs intended for littler people.

An impressive three dimensional painting of the prophet Joseph Smith.  The real-live arches added a lot!

Joseph Smith The Prophet April 29, 2008

This Saturday night, our friend Collette was performing “Joseph Smith The Prophet” at the Tabernacle on Temple Square. While we went to support her, Tim and I were astounded at the caliber of music we heard. Similar to Music and the Spoken Word, produced by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir each Sunday morning, Joseph Smith The Prophet consisted of orchestration, narration, soloists with a powerful choir to back them up. The Spirit was felt in abundance and I was in tears for the first half of the performance.

We later learned that this musical masterpiece was composed and conducted by young Rob Gardner who, with little formal musical training, possessed a tremendous testimony to share of the Prophet Joseph.

Early this morning I looked online for the CD and found Spire Music, a non-profit organization co-founded by Gardner with this vision: “…Music has an unparalleled ability to teach, uplift, edify and inspire. Our hope is to discover gifted individuals: composers, vocalists, instrumentalists, arrangers, lyricists, etc., and to give them the opportunity to use their talents to write and give voice to new, superior music of a sacred or inspiring nature. To paraphrase Spencer W. Kimball, our mission is to “strive for perfection—the best and greatest—and never [be] satisfied with mediocrity,” seeking out those “[who will] give life and feeling and true perspective to a subject so worthy.”

This performance redirected my focus and reminded me of the music within that I yearn to share and the responsibility that is mine. A heartfelt thank you to all the musicians who shared their music with us. It has been years since I have felt music bring the Spirit so powerfully.

Truly we were inspired.

Spire Music – http://www.spiremusic.org