Salt Lake City!

Downtown Salt Lake City

Joy of all joys, we found super cheap flights to Salt Lake City, and thought to ourselves... "why not?" Four of us flew out of Denver last wednesday and spent 48 hours exploring the downtown area, the museums, libraries, state capitol, and of course the Mormon Mecca, Temple Square.

Salt Lake City is a really easy city to only spend a little amount of time in. We got a hotel downtown for a good price, shuttled to and from the airport and found our way around on foot and on free transportation within the main downtown area. Everything we went to was free to the public, so we got by with only paying for lunches and dinner...super sweet!

I had a crash course education in being around a city that is more than half mormon, and where everything has been influenced by the mormons....you'll see beehives everywhere and that is from their view of hard work, everyone working together to produce good results...like honey. In most conversations we had to clarify our religious intent within the first couple of minutes, most members of the LDS were surprised that we weren't members, commenting on how much we gave off the Spirit, and nonmembers were able to shift things into more historical perspectives without worry of bringing offense.

My heart goes out to members of LDS. To live so closely to the gospel of grace and freedom, but to be bound by an empty message of faith based on works and rewards. I heard it said more than once, "we are learning to live happier, better lives."  And to live with the belief that the church died with Jesus and the apostles and only became restored through the restoration of twelve appointed apostles and a prophet, denies the power of the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit...what was pentecost all about if not to give the presence of the Spirit to all believers, regardless of apostleship?

We must have talked to every team serving missions in temple square and for the most part, I loved it.  It was most interesting to listen and pick up on the training they've been given, key words, gentle and welcoming attitudes, starting with the same words you start with, lots of agreeing, smiling, head nodding, and passive questioning....we can learn a lot from them on sharing faith and beliefs. 

State Capitol

My favorite line of questioning of the weekend came from a girl serving at the Beehive house. She was the only one brave enough to question our beliefs and pose thoughts meant to open a debate.  We kept our answers pretty neutral, way more interested in seeing a house built in the 1800's then debating, but then she pulled out the "I think it's hard to decide something isn't true when you haven't read it." To which Crystal, one of my travelmates said, "Well, I have read the Book of Mormon, most of my friends growing up were Mormon." And this poor girl serving missions couldn't understand and responded, "You read it...prayed about it....and still got no???" Crystal just smiled and said, "yep."... I love her!!! The conversation didn't continue much after that.

Apparently you read the book of mormon, pray sincerely about it, feel a burning sensation in your heart and that in and of itself tells you the book is the real truth. Now don't get me wrong, I know some fantastic families back home that are LDS, excellent neighbors and great at showing compassion and care, but I'm having a lot of difficulty with just how different their beliefs have strayed from Christianity.  I love Jesus, he is more than a prophet, more than just a human son, more than just someone to look at to learn how to live better.  He is fully human, fully God, through his death and resurrection, the full restoration of people back to God was made possible. I'll pass on ruling a planet and having spirit children when I die... I just want Jesus.

Keys on Main

And the weekend wasn't entirely spent in culture shock, we went Friday night to a dueling piano bar where we sang along to songs like Don't Stop Believing and my favorite... You Give Love a Bad Name. Our tour up at the State Capitol gave us a ton of history and time spent playing at the library made me want to live downtown just so I could go there! We got back in to Denver Saturday night, back to the grind singing with choir Sunday morning. It was my first spontaneous fly and explore trip, but I'll be keeping my eye out for more!