General Conference

Conference was a dream come true.  It was a long and grueling drive, but well worth it.  We had planned on leaving early (5:00 a.m.) on Friday, March 30, 2012, but due to avalanche control scheduled for the middle of the night in one of the mountain passes, we decided to leave Thursday night instead.  We got going around 8:30 p.m.  We got a motel in Yakima about 10:30 and then left on Friday morning at 7:00.  After getting into Salt Lake, we checked into our motel. (It was a real dive, but that is a story in itself.  Suffice it to say that the manager of the establishment was behind bullet-proof glass.)  Our daughter Pam was able to come over and visit with us for awhile that night briefly.  She and Vaughn had scheduled something that couldn't be changed for the weekend, but we were glad to see her briefly.  She brought me a bouquet of flowers and a card for my birthday.  It was sweet of her.

Saturday dawned bright and clear.  The weather was gorgeous and the temps got up to about 80 degrees, setting some records, I believe.  We met up with our friends the Shackelfords at the Dessert bookstore in the new shopping center, City Creek.  That place is AMAZING, by the way.  It's huge and has tons of neat stores and eateries. 

While at the bookstore I snapped the following photo of 3 young men sitting at a table on the sidewalk in front of the store.  One of them held up a sign proclaiming "Will sing for tickets."  Of course, that referred to Conference tickets.  Many people come to Conference w/o tickets, hoping for the chance to get in "stand by", as the rule is, that if you aren't in your seat 30 minutes before the start of conference, they open the doors to people standing in line and let them fill in the vacant seats.  Believe me, there isn't a vacant seat in that 23,000 seat Conference Center.

They had driven 18 hours from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in the hopes of getting tickets, (we found out later). Ron told Barbara to go get them, as he wanted to "check them out."  They were great young men, and Ron ended up giving them the 2 extra tickets that Ron and Barbara had.  That is an amazing story too.  Ron and Barbara now live in Lehi, Utah.  It is nearly impossible for people in Utah to get tickets for Conference.  When they found out that we were coming down, he asked his High Priest Group leader if he could try to get them tickets.  Not only did he get them tickets, he handed them 4 tickets!

There were 5 in their group and they had hopes of getting 3 more tickets.  One of them said that he would be fine just being outside listening to Conference.



Barbara Shackelford



Ron Shackelford

 After giving the young men the tickets Ken and I  had lunch with Ron and Barbara at a place called The Blue Lemon.  The food was fantastic.

We attended the afternoon session of Conference.  Being in that building was an incredible event in and of itself.  Everyone stood and there wasn't a sound, as the Prophet and his counselors came in and were seated.  We had great seats, but were far enough away so that we took advantage of the huge screens which hung on either side of the auditorium that showed the podium and speakers.





I took this on Sunday morning before the "Music and The Spoken Word" broadcast.

  


The Tabernacle Choir practicing before their broadcast.






  This is a great shot to show how big the place is.

  

Sunday's weather was appropriate for April Fools Day.  The temps dropped into the 40s and it was raining and sleeting.  Some places had some snow.  Fortunately we came prepared with heavier coats.

We attended the morning session on Sunday. All of the talks were fantastic and the music was incredible. We hope to be able to go again sometime.

We also were able to spend part of Sunday with our grandchildren who live in Salt Lake City.  We had lunch with Graham and Hannah and had a wonderful visit before going down to Ron and Barbara's to spend the evening with them.



Ken, with Hannah and Graham



Sandy with Hannah and Graham



Early Monday morning we took off for home.  It takes 15 1/2 hours to drive it.  The weather was good and we were grateful, as the rain and snow seemed to head further east before our trip home.

All in all it was a great trip, but too short!