I have all spent a great deal of time this week remembering and celebrating the life of our Prophet--President Hinkley. I have so many favorite memories. President Hinkley's 90th birthday party, General Conferences view both life and on TV (we call this pajama church), Pioneer Day parades, Devotionals, the list goes on and on. For my blog this week I'd like to share two of my favorites.
My 2nd daughter was married April 12, 2001 in the Salt Lake Temple. She had planned the date deliberately so that Temple Square would be at its Spring best--tulips, daffodils, locusts, crocuses all in full bloom. We woke up the morning of the wedding to find that instead of a beautiful spring day we were back to winter--it was snowing. Stacy, my daughter, was devastated. Following the ceremony the photographer suggested that we take the wedding pictures in the Joseph Smith Building since the snow continued. He recieved permission to take us--Stacy and Sheldon, John and I--through the tunnel that goes from the temple to the JSB so we wouldn't get wet. After the pictures were taken we went back through the tunnel to the Temple to collect the Bride and Grooms clothes. We had just entered Temple when the security guard closed the enterance and came to stand in the hall. Luckily we turned around to see what was going on just in time to see the entire First Presidency driving out of the Temple in a golf cart. They were followed closely by 2 additional carts containing the rest of the apostles. The carts passed not 15 feet away from us. If the weather had been as beautiful as we had hoped it would be we would have been outside and we would never have witnessed this remarkable and memorable scene.
For several years I worked on a committee that built the Heber C. Kimball home at the "This Is The Place Park" (work is the operative word, one night we laid sod into the wee hours of the morning). At the conclusion of the project Stanley Kimball, the chairman of the Park Administration, invited us all to a commerative dinner at the Grand America Hotel. I'm not really sure what I expected but when I arrived at the dinner I was surprised that I recognised many of the other guests as local civic and church leaders. We were seated at a table close to the podium from which the guest speaker would address us (the guest speaker was Brigham Young--but that's another story). Shortly after we arrived I looked up to discover that President Hinkley, President Monson, and President Faust were entering from a door behind the podium. They were coming right toward me and were seated at the table right behind me. I can't tell you what was served for dinner, I know that I was too excited to eat much. Although I didn't speak directly to him I've always refered to this day as the time I had lunch with President Hinkley.
3 comments:
I don't think that i would be focused on what i was eating either. That is like the most important Kairos moment anyone could have (aside from meeting the Savior). I'm so glad you had that opportunity.
On my mission I had the opportunity to get to know some members of the seventy quite well, and it was always surprising to see how wonderfully warm they all were. The brethren are so accepting and loving to everyone. They never look down on anyone, they only raised them up. It was also helpful to see that they are just normal people that have just learned how to balance all the things in their life.
That definately would be a kairos moment to have "had lunch" with the first presidency! What a great experience. I would have died if I was your daughter and it snowed on my "spring" wedding day. that would be horrible! But hey, at least you looked on the bright side. :)
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