Great Sights to See

With that great title I have to admit that I have no camera and therefore no visuals for you, alas the camera has not yet been returned to me yet, but it is fixed--just en route.

For youth conference we went to the following places, I think that they are great sites for everyone to visit so here they are with some commentary

On 800 E. between 400 and 500 S. there are some cool church sites.
Directly on the corner of 8th and 4th next to the Chuckarama is the
church that Pres. Hinckley grew up in. It is a historic church.
There is a balcony and stained glass in the chapel and it is the
oldest meeting house in the church (this means still in continual use)
it was built in 1909. It is really neat and worth a visit.

If you have heard the talk he gave about hearing "Praise to the Man" sitting in the back of the chapel this is the church house. The balcony is very cool and the stained glass is a neat feature that most of our buildings don't have.

Next to it is Gilgal Gardens, this is where Joseph Smith's head is
sculpted into a sphinx among other interesting sites. The bishop of
the ward was a stone mason and lived next door and etched his
testimony in stone. It is a neat site as well. Some of you may have
heard of this place or even been there, but I would totally recommend
going to both.

When I was a teen we snuck into Gilgal Gardens late in the night. There were a bunch of stoners there and it was kind of a freaky place. In fact the legend grew that it was haunted. Utah State helped out by planting a garden and trees and now the place is a neat spiritual refuge.

If you are looking for something more active you could go up to East
Canyon and hike Big Mountain, the mountain the pioneers had to hike
before getting to the valley. It is an easy hike, one or two
inclines. At the top is where Brigham Young gave his prophetic "This
is the place" speech.

Did this hike right after my mission, I also mountain biked it. Just a nice tranquil hike--great getaway from all the hullabaloo of city life.

The Salt Lake City cemetery is the final resting place to many of the
early church and even present day leaders. Most of the Presidents of
the church are buried there. Hyrum Smith, while not physically there,
has a huge and I mean huge monument/tower in his honor. I do believe
you can get a map that shows the famous graves while you are there.

While we were there I noticed my ancestor Caleb Haight was buried near the Hyrum Smith tower. It was cool to know that I could identify one of my ancestors and that his grave had an official pioneer logo on it. Had someone take a pic of this, as soon as I get it I will put it up.