Events of Friday, July 16, 2010

It was 71° in Salt Lake City, when I took my morning walk at 6:30. Our air conditioner did a good job keeping our home cool, though, so we slept well.

Our experiences at this campground have wiped away whatever prejudices I had against KOA. The sites are green, the kids enjoyed swimming in the pool, Pam enjoyed soaking in the hot tub, and I enjoyed the customer-friendly service. There is a free shuttle every half hour between the campground and Temple Square.  So instead of driving the RV downtown and paying for parking, we were allowed to leave the vehicle in our site, plugged in, with the air conditioner on!

The shuttle driver escorted us on foot to the first of two visitor centers in Temple Square. There we met our missionary tour guides, Basurta from Mexico and Sundaram from India. Both were about twenty years old, had a firm handshake, and spoke English pretty well. As missionaries are inclined to do, they explained to us the benefits of their religion. They both spoke often of the great comfort they had in their strong faith, the organized structural unity of their church, and the promise of spending eternity with their families. They took us through both visitor centers as well as the tabernacle.

The kids had some good questions, diplomatic but insightful. They liked the artistic renderings of Bible events, but were aghast at some of the Mormon interpretations. They were quite adept at discerning the discrepancies between the LDS teachings and our own beliefs, which made me a proud papa.

The missionaries tried their best to answer our questions, but their answers often revealed inconsistencies in their thinking. For example, the exhibit on the Temple said that it was carefully designed and each stone held a lesson. Pam asked why the outside of the church featured a design with the star of David, they explained that the symbol had no significance, that the builders were looking though a catalogue and liked the design, so they used it. After viewing the exhibit on the importance of families and family togetherness, I asked how they thought about Jesus’ teaching that he did not come to bring peace but a sword that would divide families. They did not recognize the Scriptural reference at all but guessed that Jesus came to bring peace and wanted to keep families together and that his teachings help families to stay together 

From these and other examples, we came away from the experience with the sense that our hosts are genuine, kind, and courteous, but lazy in their thinking and shallow in their knowledge. We had hoped to take a tour of the new (2004) Conference Center, but it was closed in preparation for tonight’s program. So instead, we visited the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and a pioneer log cabin with a very low doorway (ouch).

We ended our visit with the noon organ recital in the Tabernacle. The organist began with a demonstration of the hall’s acoustics. She ripped a newspaper and then dropped three pins and a nail. Even at 120 feet away, those were the loudest pin drops I’ve ever heard. That planted a thought that was confirmed as the recital ensued: the curved walls focused sounds, especially low-wavelength high-frequency sounds, and magnified them. So, what we heard was not accurate. As a result, the volume of high pitches was loud, but the low bass was weak.The music lacked the bone-rattling rumble and roar that makes organ music so visceral and exciting. 

Tonight we drove to the outskirts of Dinosaur National Monument, which we intend to visit tomorrow.