Thursday In SLC

After two expensive but excellent drinks and listening to Jazz (plus a snack), I returned to the hotel at about 10. I soon fell asleep and woke a few times, and seemed to be coughing often. I am enjoying Salt Lake City (SLC).

Before this, I was in the hotel room (Deborah left earlier for some conference meetings and dinner). I ate the other half of her lunch (it was huge) while I booked hotels, flights, and cars for my trips in April and in August. I booked the NYC trip for the 2600 Magazine’s Hope 26 Hacker Conference, including direct flights to JFK (comfort class, as that is a long flight). I used Delta to book the hotel, The New Yorker, to get the extra miles. According to the hotel staff I spoke with, there is no way to connect the reservations, and I may have to change rooms. I have the April trip almost done. I need a hotel in St. Louis, but I have a car there and flights. I got all this in TripIt, my favorite travel app, and this lets me visualize the trip. I checked that I had not missed any hotel nights (it is easy to miss a night between stays). All the reservations can be changed (increasing the airflights by $100) or canceled. I use Costco Travel for the cars, as it seems to offer an excellent deal with the usual rental companies.

Moving back in the day, before this, Deborah and I met in the room between her sessions and meetings. Later, I headed to the hotel pool on the sixth floor, and on the roof there. The sun glare was hot, and Deborah strongly suggested sunscreen today. I spent an hour walking back and forth in the slightly cool waters. There were no children, and most folks were in chairs getting some rays by the pool. I spoke to a few folks who were sliding in an hour of pool before the dinner and meetings.

While walking in the pool, I was working out a new Dungeons & Dragons adventure based on our experience in Arches and Moab, and trying to invent something that fits the stones and petroglyphs and was new. It was fun to do that again and just enjoy the pool. When I got out, I was cold as a light wind joined with the setting sun made me shiver. Surprisingly, in 80°F+ temperatures.

Before all of this, I was at the FamilySearch center (an online service), now a building across from Temple Square. Before I headed there, I prepared by logging in to my Ancestry.com account and collecting information about my 2nd great-grandfather, Wilhelm G. Wild (born 1850). I wrote it in Deborah’s little notebook she received from the conference, but was not using. I then walked the three blocks to the center. There, I was directed to the first basement floor. Next, I was sent to one of the hundreds of browser-based workstations with two screens, a keyboard, and a mouse. Some had microfilm readers. I was expecting a library with stacks and files of photos, but instead it looked like a very quiet Internet Cafe without the coffee or food. Debby, an older woman with a name tag and a shirt with the FamilySearch logo, helped me create a free account on FamilySearch (but I did not check the option to be visited by an LDS person or to provide my home address). I learned that these free records include European information (an extra fee on Ancestry.com, previously, but maybe that has changed). Wilhelm’s christening information was included in their records, something I have never seen before.

Debby tried to help. I was searching for a photograph, but she admitted she was new to this, and another person, Richard, an elderly man, came to help me next (he was level 2, if you like). He ran a few more online searches, though, and seemed impressed that I had covered everything they had (their records included the photo I took of Wilhelm’s grave, which I put in the public space). He then had me write the information on a piece of paper and then carried it up to another floor to see if they had any other photos of Wilhelm. None, but Richard and I were happy that I had found that my research was really complete and that I had everything they had, except for some stuff in Germany. Excellent.

It was an interesting couple of hours, and Debby and Richard were helpful, and I can trace a few more steps into Germany. I thought the search function at FamilySearch was not as good as Ancestry.com’s, and some of their scanned records had been compressed to the point of being unreadable. Their text scan produced endless matches with no means to control it. It was fascinating from a genealogical and computer-science perspective. A generative search, like ChatGPT, would provide answers, but without a trace path, it would be hard to know what is real and generative (or hallucination, as it is called now). A usual search would be slow and error-prone. You need tagging, which users provide by assembling family trees in the software and adding information, like photos, to memories attached to the trees and to the person records in their information. Thus, FamilySearch will get better (and that is why it is free now).

I spoke to Dondrea on the phone, who said I should see the Tabernacle (across the street from FamilySearch). I also spoke to Jeff, who is replacing the flooring at the house while I travel. The water damage he discovered did not spread into the boards that support the floor, and thus, the repairs and new flooring costs will be as expected. No structural repairs; excellent!

I found the entrance to the self-guided tour, sat in a pew, and looked. It is an amazing performance space. Some folks were taking photos, and they turned on all the dramatic lighting, and someone fiddled a few notes on the massive organ. It sounded lovely.

Moving the narrative earlier in the day, before stopping by the room and collecting information, I tried an Italian place (missing lunch with Deborah) for their $15 special, which turned into the $20 special. I had a stupidly huge plate of freshly made pasta in a meat sauce. It was good, but not great, and I could not eat that much; I decided not to take it back to the room. I noticed that the staff is two levels (here and other places), a front person with excellent English with a slight accent, and then silent staff who clear tables, cook, and do the work. Most do not know English, as I had trouble getting directions to the restrooms a few times. They looked a bit frightened to me when I noticed them. It is troubling to Deborah (who has witnessed the same thing) and me.

I will be driving into other parts of SLC tomorrow, and maybe this is just a characteristic of the high-end area. I did notice the same bifurcation in Park City, but did not focus on it. Hmmm.

Before this, we slept in, and I, being the plus one, tried to stay out of the way while Deborah got ready. I had written the blog the night before, and had no plans but to walk around SLC. I went to Toasters for breakfast, and they were good but slow (Deborah found them too slow for her tight schedule, and the food was huge—I ate the other half of her lunch for dinner). I then walked to Temple Square and found it partially under construction. I found a gate and walked in. It reminded me of some Presbyterian and Lutheran buildings, but was clearly connected to the LDS story.

I stopped by the official LDS bookstore, Deseret Books, just across from Temple Square. The staff pointed out that the art, books, and temple clothing were available. There was one painting of Jesus contemplating Jerusalem in the high-up at the Garden of Gethsemane, with a carefully crafted 2nd Temple and other sites below that impressed me (over $5K), but with the usual paint-by-numbers looking Jesus. There were many paintings in many styles (cubist but with a standard Jesus) and other versions of Jesus, but most were the usual reworked Italian Master’s look. Elsewhere in the store, they supplied clothing (including the required undergarments), and I found even belts and ties that appear to be approved for use. I am, being Methodist, used to seeing large sets of books on church founders in official stores (like Cokesbury), and Jonathan Smith was well represented; I mistook it at first for John Wesley’s writings (the books’ covers are the same colors). A unique bookstore.

My next stop, and the rest of the morning, was the newish Church History Museum. There are lots of proctors there to help you, tell you the story, and bring the historical objects to life. A short film about the moment when Jonathan Smith was called was quite persuasive and well-made. I like the quotes and might use one if I can find it again for my upcoming Sunday School class on Smith’s discomfort as a child with all the confusing versions of interpretations of the Bible.

(The original box with representative golden pages)

I saw the box that once held the golden tablets and the handwritten record of Smith’s translation of them. I like to see the sources. There was the Book of Mormon, as it was first spoken and recorded from the golden tablets.

I learned that the early LDS folks did not use cameras, and the only images of Smith and his brother are their death masks. They were killed by a mob. There were a few bits left of the hand-carved stone work from one of the first temples (destroyed in riots against the LDS). There are engravings and notes, but no photos.

The museum covers most of Smith’s history and then the founding of SLC by Brigham Young, and stops. Still interesting.

All interesting and the proctors were friendly, but they could only point out things there. I enjoyed seeing the artifacts of the early LSD church and the original founders.

Thanks for reading!