Salt Lake City - A Day with the Mormons

13.06. / Monday / Salt Lake City

It is quite cloudy, but around 20°C when we leave the hotel on foot at 9:30 am. We go to Temple Square, the Mormon complex in the city center. Besides the Beehive House (the residence of the Mormon founder), there is also the temple, which non-Mormons cannot enter, the tabernacle, a 26-story office building, two visitor centers, a Mormon church (with a spire) and an assembly hall.

But first we notice that something we read in a brochure is actually true: At all uncontrolled pedestrian crossings, there are quivers attached to the lamp posts on both sides of the crosswalk, containing red flags. You are supposed to wave these around as additional safety measures while crossing the street, so that cars don't overlook you. Of course, we make a joke out of it and a passing motorist either laughs at us or with us. The people here are all very friendly anyway. Even those who let us cross the street at traffic lights or don't let us cross when they turn, smile at us.

Today is Monday and the traffic is not much busier than yesterday. The city is starting to seem suspicious to me. All the streets are very wide, built long ago so that horse-drawn carriages and ox carts could easily turn around.

Monday morning: Rush hour in Salt Lake City

We visit the beautiful garden of the Beehive House in front of Temple Square.

The Mormon complex with Beehive House (right), Office Building (skyscraper), church (left) and other buildings of Temple Square

The founder of the Mormons, also known as the (first) prophet, Joseph Smith, was murdered in 1844. Brigham Young, who succeeded Smith as the (second) prophet, lived in the Beehive House and the adjacent Lion House until 1877. He led a large number of his followers out of the United States of the 1840s. At that time, the Rockies, including present-day Utah, belonged to Mexico. The community founded Salt Lake City. Brigham advocated polygamy, which was previously practiced only secretly and only by the church leaders. However, Brigham included a so-called "revelation" in the teachings of Smith's book "Doctrine and Covenants" and called on his community and believers to have multiple wives. The dispute over this somewhat strange family structure escalated when Utah became part of the United States and Brigham was appointed territorial governor. What the Mormons actually wanted to achieve with their migration to the Rockies and to Utah, which was to leave the United States, had caught up with them again. Brigham led the Mormons for the last 30 years of his life and was regarded as a prophet and colonizer. He himself had numerous wives. Polygamous marriages are no longer common among most Mormons today.

At Temple Square

We head to the office building, because there is an observation platform on the 26th floor, which can only be visited accompanied by an employee. Our guide is a friendly middle-aged woman, who we freely ask questions about the faith and history of the Mormons. Of course, we are asked about our own beliefs, and even our statement that we are not practicing Christians is okay with her. We learn that Mormons generally believe in the Bible, in Jesus Christ, but also in the Book of Mormon.

John Smith wrote this scripture in 1820. At that time - he lived in Manchester/New York - he was visited by an angel named Moroni. This scripture states that after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the remaining 11 disciples and told them what Mormons believe today and that they should spread this doctrine. This makes Mormons very intensive missionaries. We know the groups of young people, mostly men, who occasionally attract attention in subways or on the street in Germany because they always walk around super properly dressed in suits with ties and name tags and approach people. Here, the missionary members dress more casually, always carry a Bible with them, and have friendly faces.

John Smith, the mentioned founder of the Mormons, propagated that the Holy Spirit will return to the earth someday, specifically to America, to establish his promised land here. That is why the center of the Mormons is in the USA.

The Mormons living in Utah are known as Rocky Mountain Mormons - it sounds like a cavalry troop... they definitely see Joseph Smith as their spiritual leader. There are splinter groups that do not agree with this. Since 1890, polygamy has no longer been part of the faith and is rejected by the Rocky Mountain Mormons. Other groups still see it differently to this day.

The main group of Mormons worldwide has over 13 million baptized members. In continental Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, there are only about 5% of believers. In Germany, there are about 36,000 members.

The Office Building with the observation platform on the 26th floor

The Temple of the Mormons

View towards Capitol Hill

The view from the 26th floor is amazing, and we see Temple Square from above. We have to sign a visitor's list and can check a box indicating whether we would like to have a visit. We leave it open and am now waiting for someone to ring my doorbell. We receive a small card listing the principles of John Smith in German and leave the Office Building enlightened after over an hour in order to quickly grab something to drink in the adjacent John Smith Memorial Building.

Church hymns in the Memorial Building

The building has elements of an old ballroom. After 20 minutes, we rush on again because there is supposed to be an organ concert in the Tabernacle at 2:00 pm.The organ is world-famous and with 11,623 organ pipes and 147 registers, it is one of the largest in the world. It was originally created in 1867, but it was not until the 1940s that it was brought to its current form and size through improvements, etc. We are barely in the Tabernacle and realize that the organ concert is cancelled, when two girls stick to us and provide us with information without us asking. In the process, it is also mentioned that this is the second largest organ in the world, and the largest one is in a department store in Philadelphia... I google it and find out: it is actually true! It is located in a Macy's department store in Philadelphia, in the seven-story atrium and has 28,500 pipes. It is the so-called Wanamaker Grand Court Organ.

Anyway, St. Stephen's Cathedral in Passau already has over 17,000 organ pipes and is considered the world's largest church organ. There is simply no ranking for department store organs, so the Philadelphia organ is likely the largest in the world, but it is not a church organ. The largest church organ is in Passau.

Amidst all the explanations about the choir and the acoustics of the Tabernacle, the suddenly asks: "Are you familiar with the Bible?" Oops.. umm. Well... we talk our way out of it and leave before it gets even more crowded.

Organ in the Tabernacle / Temple Square

Outside, there are beautiful flower beds that we photograph, but not without being grabbed by the next group of girls. The only solution is to go to the toilet and to the Visitor Center.

Our 'shadows'...

Visitor Center with the model of the temple interior

Since Mormons believe that they will stay together forever and that marriages are not sealed until death, but for eternity, family genealogies are very important to Mormons. There are various databases, such as www.ancestry.org, which store millions of family histories that are stored in a bombproof underground bunker, so that future generations will know who they should look for in the afterlife. Here at the Visitor Center, there are a few computers where you can search for family names. However, we don't find anyone who appears familiar to us. No one has registered yet.

In the Visitor Center

In this Visitor Center decorated with pictures of Jesus, which also provides small documentaries on interactive screens, there is also a several-meter-high cross-section model of the Salt Lake Temple in front of a window front about 20-30 meters high.

The model of the temple interior

There is also an interactive screen with audible explanations about the individual rooms and a 360° panorama. As non-Mormons, we are not allowed to enter the temple, which with its four turrets bears some resemblance to the Cinderella Castle at Disney World. The temple is only used for baptisms (at the age of 8), weddings, and meetings of the 12 apostles (11 disciples plus the head Mormon). The baptisms are performed by full immersion in the baptismal font.

It has started to drizzle outside, so we walk back to the hotel. Fortunately, I have my "plastic bag" from Yellowstone Park to put on. We grab our car at the hotel and drive towards Nevada to the salt lake.

A highway runs parallel to the shore, but unfortunately, there is no road that leads directly there, and you cannot stop on the highway. We see some salt mining sites and that the weather is getting very dark.

So we turn around after about 60 miles without reaching the salt desert, which looked really impressive in the photos. Finally, we drive off the highway once more and find access to the lake, but it looks pretty marshy. It starts to flash and thunder, and a strong storm starts, so we retreat towards Salt Lake City.

Since there wasn't a single store downtown that we saw, which is really strange, we drive to a shopping center near the city under a blue sky again. The Gateway was opened in 2002 when the Olympic Winter Games took place here. It is possible that all downtown stores went under at that time. The downtown area of Salt Lake City looks pretty dead without any stores. Especially in the evenings. There are really only office buildings, administrative buildings, a few restaurants, and possibly one or two drugstores or small shops here and there. Upon closer inspection, the city is very atypical for the USA and somewhat sterile. We grab a quick bite to eat and then drive up to Capitol Hill again to see and photograph the city in the evening light from a hill behind it. The houses up here are amazing, and there are apparently quite wealthy people among the Mormons as well. 60% of the residents of Salt Lake City are Mormons.

We walk through the garden of an empty house, hoping that the burglar alarm or floodlights do not go off. The house is still partially furnished and has a dream location. We take great pictures of the city against the backdrop of the mountains and the salt lake in the setting sun.