Oquirrh Mountain Temple Celebration

Saturday I had the amazing opportunity to go to the Conference Center and watch the amazing Oquirrh Mountain Temple Celebration. It was an amazing thing. About 7,000 youth participated in song and dance, including my oldest 2 children. They’ve been practicing for about 2-3 months for this. The costumes were amazing, and the hours and time spent preparing were unimaginable. The performance was great. What was also amazing, was the conference center was FILLED with people. It seats over 21,000 people, and I think it was mostly just filled with the parents and leaders of the youth performing! We were allowed two tickets, but my husband stayed behind to bring all of our children to a nearby church building, to watch the performance through a broadcast there. Both of our parents came there to watch it with them. It was too bad we couldn’t all be together, but I was so grateful to see the performance first hand.

The whole performance was considered a culteral celebration, and most of the songs celebrated different time periods of Utah’s history, including a celebration of the Armed Forces, and of various countries as well. I was surprised that the temple celebration was mostly of this character, and not so much about the temple or very religious in nature at all. My daughter, Jessica, had invited a non-member friend of hers to watch the performance in the Conference Center, and so I was privileged to sit with her and her mother. It was interesting to watch their reactions. They were very impressed, as I was, at the sheer number of youth, the beautiful costumes, and so many amazing songs and dances performed that must have taken hours and hours to put together. What was most impressive to my non-member friends though, was the simple song arrangement near the end, of our long time favorites, “I Love to See the Temple” and “Families can be together forever”. The lyrics were on the screen so that the audience could sing along. These are songs we’ve been singing since we were kids, and love, but were amazingly powerful. I sat next to another daughter and mother in our ward that lost their dad, a previous bishop and Stake President. We were all weeping at the spirit that confirmed what we know about the temple, and how families can be together forever. My non-member friends on my other side, leaned over to me, and said, “That was beautiful”. It truly was beautiful.

This last week or so, I was asked to write another camp song. I’ve been surprised how I have not been able to find time to write it. My kids have been off-track, and every time I think I have a moment, I’ve had constant interruptions. I had started wondering if maybe the Lord didn’t want me to write this song. After listening to those sweet simple primary songs though, I think I just need to write something more simple and basic. It’s nice to be able to write something more complicated and intricate, but it’s more amazing to write something simple, and see what happens when the spirit can do His work. I’m just grateful to be one of His instruments here on the earth.