Salt Lake City

SALT LAKE CITY proper

The city founded by the Mormons and still claiming 35% of the population.

THE MORMONS I'm no authority on the Mormon sect but they hold sway in this part of America, at least that is what appears though whether it is more token than actual I know not.

We had a mini guided tour round the Mormon Temple Complex by two young, about 20 ish, girls who along with many others of similar pairs of female missionaries. They call themselves missionaries and it appears they devote 18 months of their time at this sort of age to their allegiance to their faith. No proselytising, some direct questions such as have you felt god in your life as I have etc which take a bit of answering or evading, they are not afraid to talk of their personal faith which at this level is really indistinguishable from Christianity.

Their church is very family orientated, men and women have distinct roles in the family and the emphasis is on keeping and bringing up the family in accordance with Gods' laws. OK but some of our problems can start here as Gods laws are as laid down both in the bible or as stated by the book of Mormon a testament revealed to Joseph Smith in the early 19C. Mormons believe he was a prophet who received Gods word direct and who translated tablets, seen only by him, which form the basis of the faith,

Other major problems occur with their views of priesthood, men only, The view that God is three person each an individual and each a man elevated to the position of god. Any man can with a good life become a god. I stop as I cannot keep going on as the more I write the less I know.

The Temple grounds are large, exquisite and the buildings are ? to the glory of their God or to Mormonism or to the egos of the 12 leaders of the church. Huge admin tower building about 25 odd floors and amazing visitor/explanation centres time 2. I know I am being cynical and the Mormons do appear to do a lot of work worldwide as do other churches, faiths, oxfam etc. I suppose I find it hard to accept multi million expenditure within the past 40 years as a way of promulgating ones faith. In reality our cathedrals no doubt cost the same or more in real terms when they were constructed so i am treading a sticky wicket of humbug here.

The city itself has been hugely enhanced by a new shopping centre bang in the middle by the Temple, well designed and open to the sky with streams trees many water features etc. it opened in March this year after 8 years of planning and is and has obviously made a huge difference . Built by and paid for to the tune of 2 billion dollars by the Mormon Church. A secular area but closed on Sunday, there are also no buses on Sunday which was a bit of a nuisance.

We went to a big band evening in the Brigham Young memorial Park on the Friday, a free evening and there are many such freebies organised by the Mormons. I do not particularly like the big band sound and this was no exception though largely because the band was small and the wide section of trumpets, trombones etc was very poor to useless.

Attended the broadcast half hour of the Tabernacle Choir on Sunday morning at 9.30am. A good occasion where the choir sing about half a dozen pieces, some religious some secular, their hymns are in the main our hymns. there is a two minute homily this time on the family.

The 350 strong choir is world renowned and good. This 30 minute broadcast has been done every Sunday at 9.30 for the last 84 years so they know what they are up to. Rehearsals on Thursday night can be watch if you wish.

I had my hair cut at a barbers who very one on the internet raved about, good cut by his brother as he had had an emergency quadruple heart bypass the day before!

Enjoyable stay here and worth it to gain little more knowledge of this and that.