1Oct11
Through a Chaotic sequence of events, I decided to stay over for an extra couple of days, and get some Mormon cultural education.
The first time I went to the state Capitol for a meeting (months ago), I was pretty blown away by the architecture, both external and internal. It makes the Nevada Capitol complex look like the seat of some hick county government, despite the fact that Nevada and Utah populations, governments, and economies are all roughly the same size. The Utah Capitol is at least comparable to the DC equivalents. Better, in a lot of ways.
LDS holds a big conference twice a year, and one of them is this weekend. Someone on the plane out here told me that, and said that there were some events open to the public, so I figured I’d check it out. When I checked into it, it turns out I would have had to wait in line to see if there was space available. Not on my menu. I suppose I could have connected through various people at work, but I wanted to see what would happen to a random intelligent, interested non-member, who happened to be in town at the time of the event.
The LDS website was helpful, but not overly so, so I left a message. I got a “canned” response the same day, but it did include some useful additional info. I called the main info line yesterday, expecting to be on hold for days or forever, given what’s going on this weekend, but I got to a live person in under five minutes. Very helpful, and while they didn’t have a solution to my particular inquiry, they did say that there was an intro movie about Joseph Smith at the Memorial Hall that I might want to see. She said usually you can just walk in, but given the conference, I’d need a ticket to see it over the weekend.
So, I scooted over there, parked the car, and took the elevator up to the main lobby. Very impressive. Wide open spaces, a piano playing (well) in the background, and comfortable chairs to sit in. So, I just sat and watched for a bit, I finally found the word I was searching for when I saw the Capitol for the first time, and at that moment, the Memorial Hall.
Epic.
All of the architecture has an epic quality to it. And, at least as interesting, all the people I talked to have the same view of LDS, and their role in it. Epic.
There was an office with an open door (I hadn’t noticed the information desk in the main lobby), so I walked in and asked about getting tickets for the movie for Saturday (today). They said I couldn’t get the ticket in advance, and that I would need to come and wait in line the next day. Not on the menu. However, they had a showing in about half an hour that I could just attend, so I decided to do that. In the interim, I wandered around, sat for a bit, and talked to a few folks.
When they opened the doors to the theater, it was…well…epic. ENORMOUS screen, Imax. The movie itself was completely absorbing. It was about the life of Joseph Smith, and the formation of the church. The production values were flawless. The dialog was completely engaging, and the portrayal of the characters seemed entirely natural. More like watching a live transmission than a movie, really. It took a little over an hour, but it felt much longer. We exited through doors on the opposite side from the entry, and there were bright and shining young missionaries available to answer questions. But, I just sat for a bit, and then went to the used furniture store to buy my recliner (one of the best purchases I’ve made in a long time!).
My knowledge of Mormon history is actually quite spotty, so I did want to do a little fact checking here. The movie depicted the story of the Mormons being driven out of the mid-west, pretty much at gunpoint, with non-trivial violence that was more in the background than in the main content of the movie. My understanding has always been that that’s basically accurate. Not getting into the weeds of any details, is that basically accurate?
Today, my first event is to do some genealogy research on two questions. There’s a legend in our family that we are partially (very partially) native American. But, if that happened, it would probably have been in the 1600s, so there may simply be no data to confirm or falsify that legend. The second thing I want to find out is whether or not we are actually related to James D. Savage, who’s the European discoverer of Yosemite. When I first found out about him, I did some basic research, and I almost made a connection in either Indiana or Ohio in the early 1800s, but I couldn’t quite determine it either way. That information, they should have.
Should be fun!
J
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