Trip to Pocatello

 As soon as I heard that there was going to be a temple in Pocatello, I knew we would be going to the open house. Fortunately, a few other FoEs were going that day too! We had a mini-reunion at the Chubbuck library and it was so fun. Mom and Dad got to meet some of my friends. Afterward, we went to Natalia's house to change for the temple tour. I had made masks and shirts with Lizzy's help to commemorate the trip.

    Mom and Dad drove up and Joseph and Heather drove down and we all went through together. It was so nice. I had the inside scoop about many of the decorations so I told everyone about them: in the chapel to the left on the ground floor is a magnificent stained glass window of Christ. It came from an old church in Chicago. Windows from the same church are also in the Provo City Center Temple and the Swan Valley temple. As you circle around the foyer outside the chapel, there is an original painting depicting pioneers, by Minerva Teichert. At the end of the hall near the celestial room is a painting of Christ. At his feet, there are azucenas, or lilies. On the stair way before the celestial room, I saw at least two spiral shell fossils in the stone flooring. There may be more. Also, there is a syringa flower motif repeated in the painted trims, the stained glass windows in the doors, and carved into the wooden tables and doors. It's a lovely, delicate detail, which also happens to be the state flower of Idaho. I really appreciate the level of details that honor and reflect their location that is being imbued into the new temples. The flowers are syringa, bitterroot, and Indian paintbrush The floor stone is from Jerusalem. The wood is african mohogany.

It was a cold drizzly day, but we were so happy to experience it. 

  We were bussed from a church to the temple and then back, Mom and Dad left after we got back to the church, and Joseph and Heather stayed for dinner. Mom and Dad had told us of this restaurant they had gone to the night before and so we tried to go there, but the wait was 2 hours.  We searched around a bit in vain and then finally ordered pizza and brought it back to the place we were staying. I feel bad that we always end up getting pizza together, but maybe I should just embrace it and let it become our "thing".  It was nice to catch up a bit.