BLOGGERS, TAKE ME AWAY: Details & Pix-3rd Installment

So, last time we left you in the museum.  So let's just roll forward from here, shall we?  :0)

A lovely cello!  Music was vital to the Saints.  I can understand that.  In this day & age its vital for me.  Can you imagine how even more so back then, when they didn't have all the additional distractions?

I don't know why I love this so much, but I was tickled to realize it only makes sense that the Mormon Battalion would hold dances & balls.  Military isn't military without a reason to dress up & cut a rug!  Lol.

My dad & Mr LKP have GOT to be proud of me for snagging this picture!

Something fascinating about Brigham Young's spy glass.  To think of all the plans that were made thanks to it.

Now THIS I had to take note of, probably the dental assistant in me!  Lol.  :D

(Mr LKP's DEFINITELY loving this one!)

Many of my ancestors crossed the Atlantic Ocean, so I'm figuring that's why this model of the Enoch Train captured my heart.  I appreciate everything it represented.  Therefore I just had to capture it from about every angle possible.  You can call it obsessive if you like.  I choose to call it gratitude & admiration.  (:

That's Kim hiding behind the replicated bunks.  I'm grateful for the bed I have that's on solid ground!

Many of my family sailed from Denmark, others from Great Britain.  Each journey took months. What they would've thought to have traveled the 900+ mile distance I was able to in half of a day!

It's got to be the Danish heritage in me and jumped for joy to see this bedspread had survived the years!

Crazy to imagine pulling a handcart cross-country, let alone to imagine it with a peg-leg.  Wow!

Exquisite the workmanship, as well as the the fact 86 infants wore it!

This piano came across the plains in a wagon!  I love how important music was to the early Saints. 

I just love wheels and what they symbolize.  Perpetual motion.  No beginning & no end.  Progression.  Always moving forward.  Just like us.

 

Me and the beehive are like *this* (if only you could see my crossed fingers right now).  I love what it means to me, and what that it always reminds me to be anxiously engaged in uplifting work.  I love it so much I'm trying to incorporate it more into my home & decor so I have that daily reminder as well!  So, considering all that, it was only natural that I'd be smitten with this stained-glass window and HAVE to have a gazillion photos of it!

How cool IS that home-made violin, eh?!?  After I saw it, suddenly I was humming "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" the rest of the afternoon and remembering Jenny Oaks Baker's performance of it at TOFW!

Cross-section model of the baptismal font from the Salt Lake City, UT Temple.  Before I used to dream of doing an endowment session there.  Now after seeing this, I want to do a little of EVERYTHING in the Salt Lake, UT Temple.....as well as in the Manti, UT and Logan, UT Temples.  I've got the itch!

From here the rest of my pictures from the museum aren't as clear as I'd have liked.  However my big girl camera's battery died, so I had to whip out my little point & shoot instead.  Please forgive any blur.  It's so tiny, and my hands are in the habit of steadying a bigger camera that weighs a lot more, so I don't know quite what to do with all my brute strength & pent up energy when dealing with something so dainty.  It's definitely my 'damsel in distress' camera.  Lol!

 

I am completely & utterly obsessed with this doorknob replica.  Actually I'm obsessed with the originals, but since we didn't have the opportunity to get face to face with the originals this one will do for now.  Which is okay, cause I love it & feel something so strong in my heart whenever I see it & read its words.  Something inside me is dying to reach out and touch one someday!  (:

Interpretations of the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd "days" or periods of the Creation.

When I read this on the wall I felt very stirred within, and delighted by the covenants I have made with my Heavenly Father!

Back side of an original set of doors from the Manti, UT temple.  I can't recall if it's a replica of the original or not.  Below is a close up of it's doorknob.  Not in the same category as the one from the Salt Lake City, UT temple but cool nonetheless.  While studying it, I almost thought I was detecting some Spanish influence in the style of workmanship.  Extremely well-done, and oh so intricate!  Can you see it too?

At this point we enter the Exhibit of the Prophets.  There are a few mementos & examples of the work from the lives of each of our past prophets, from the beginning of the Church through to President Gordon B. Hinckley, who passed on in early 2008.  All of these prophets were men of God, and amazing in their own right.  Those who I will feature some exhibit items from are not more important than the others, they are just some who I connect with for one reason or another.  Most are fairly recent in their leadership (as in, within the past 31 years) simply because they are those who have lead the Church within my lifetime, and therefore I'm more familiar with them.  Though I am making it a point to become more & more familiar with all of the past prophets, their teachings/distinct missions, and the effects their legacies & revelations have had on the Church.

~President Brigham Young~ 

A lock of Brigham Young's hair.  Upon seeing this shot, Mr. LKP is officially creeped out by it.  I think it's so extremely cool!  I mean, when we were in Washington D.C. we saw locks of Abraham Lincoln's hair as well as some pieces from his skull.  He wasn't creeped out then.  Lol.  But perhaps it's more interesting to me considering there's a ancestral connection there.  Brigham Young was my 5th (I'm pretty sure 5th, might be 4th though) great-uncle on my mom's dad's side.  So, I guess that must be why I care. 

I'm thinking I need to get me a prayer bell for sure!  I mean, I already know I want a dinner bell out on the porch.  Only makes sense for prayer too, right? 

I. heart. Brigham's. sunglasses.  I do!  Matter of fact I think I love most the fact that he too, the Governor of the state of Utah AND the Prophet of the Lord needed/had sunglasses even way back then!  Awesome!

This one is for my mother.  She has a thing for Native American culture, especially the Anasazi.  (:

That 45 star Flag was draped from the ceiling of the Tabernacle that the bridge builder, Henry Grow, had engineered.  Henry was my 4th or 5th Great Grandpa.  So anything about the tabernacle is kind of a big deal to me.  Plus I LOVE how regal it looks when it's all dressed up in these old photographs!

 ~President Heber J. Grant~

Is that not the coolest story?  Genius!

Interesting scrapbook pages with images of when the First Presidency met in the Beehive House Annex, then the construction of the "new" Administration building just down the street from the Beehive House Annex, and of course Hotel Utah next door to the Admin building.  Of course Hotel Utah not only went on the host some of THE biggest soirees & some of history's great dignataries, but it would later become our beloved Joseph Smith Memorial Building which is home now to a chapel, the Legacy theater (which is currently showing the Joseph Smith movie), The FamilySearch center, The Roof & The Garden restaurants, as well as Cafe Nauvoo....or is it Nauvoo Cafe?  I can't remember.  But these photographs show it rising from it's humble beginnings.  Just like each of us, we have humble starts (always from the same beginnings), and we grow & go on to fulfill great purposes that we love & appreciate.  But in reality the Lord's purpose still to come is greater than we could previously comprehend!  Loved the lesson I got from this moment, and this scrapbook.

 ~President David O. McKay~

 ~President Joseph Fielding Smith~

 ~President Spencer W. Kimball~

 One of my great-grandmas was Spencer W. Kimball's secretary while he was an Apostle.  There's even a letter of gratitude that he penned to my great-grandma, framed & displayed in my mom's library at her home.  It's kind of a big deal to us. Quite an honor.

During Spencer W. Kimball's tenure as President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he received revelation for Heavenly Father that it was time that the authority to hold the Priesthood could be extended to every worthy male member of the Church.  "He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color...
We declare with soberness that the Lord has now made known his will for the blessing of all his children throughout the earth who will hearken to the voice of his authorized servants, and prepare themselves to receive every blessing of the gospel."  (Declaration 2; 1978)  This was what so many had been hoping & praying for, for so long!   

View of the Salt Lake City, UT Temple from inside the LDS Church History Museum.

~President Ezra Taft Benson~

This is the "Hot Seat" he used to sit in & report weekly to President Eisenhower from.  When his term was complete, his staff bought it for him for $88.  He had said something about how many times he didn't think he could GIVE it away for nothing, let alone get $88 for it.  What a character.  I liked him a lot as a child.  He had such a demeanor about him, and a softness but also a very practical side to him.  The more stories I'd learn of him, and the more I'd see him in the Ensign or at General Conference, the more I thought that it would've been OK if Heavenly Father had made him one of my grandpas as well.  He was so likable.

 ~President Gordon B. Hinckley~

The new Conference Center was built while Gordon B. Hinckley was President of the LDS Church.

This is a replica of the current pulpit that is housed in the Conference Center.  The original pulpit was crafted from a walnut tree from President Hinckley's yard.  Kim kept encouraging me to stand behind it for a picture.  I'm thinking that's a little too ominous for me.  I'm feeling a lot safer admiring the pulpit from this side, rather than even THINKING about the idea of standing on the other side.  But that's me & my fears.  ;0)

So there you have it, the Museum through the Exhibit of the Prophets.  Only a little more from the Museum, then a little something wonderful I learned just a few nights ago, and then we're off to zip up above Kennecott Mine!

More to come, before you know it....