General Conference

Sorry to have missed a week of blogging. Last Sunday was the end of Conference weekend. For my friends who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year our church comes together via television, satellite, and the internet in a worldwide broadcast. I love conference! Funny but when I was kid I dreaded it – it was too long and boring! Even though we only attended the Sunday sessions. We watch the Saturday and Sunday sessions now and with satellite television we get watch from the comfort of our home. I love BYUtv all through the year – but especially on conference weekends.
This conference was especially exciting because President Monson announced the building of five new temples. Temples are special places of worship for members of our church. A new temple is to be built in Philadelphia!! That will be our temple district. It cuts our travel time by half. It will be a smaller, vertical temple like Manhattan’s. It’s currently a parking lot, I got to see the sight on Saturday when I was in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is an interesting city that I’m looking forward to exploring. The temple site is only a couple of blocks from a kind of scary neighborhood. It will be interesting to watch the influence of the temple change that neighborhood.

Manhattan Temple

When we lived in Alaska the temple was seven hours away in Anchorage. But we were grateful that we could drive there, since we were overseas before that flying was our only option. When we moved to Delaware we were thrilled to be just two hours from the Washington DC temple. Barry and I still love the DC temple – it was the one of our youth, our first temple experiences and so beautiful!

Washington DC Temple

I’ll post a picture of the Philly temple just as soon as one is released. It’s hard to believe it will only be an hour away (traffic permitting)!! It is an amazing evidence of the growth of the church in this area and the faith of the members worldwide. We're so happy to have a part in it.