Please let me be wrong about this.

Let me preface by saying that I moved into my home because of its proximity to the LDS temple. I am simply thrilled to have such a beautiful structure near my home. I am so excited to be able to sit out on my front porch and view the magnificence of the building. I also understood the increased traffic to the temple for those doing temple work and I am good with all that. Just so you all understand that.


The Oquirrh Mountain Temple begins its open house soon and I attended a meeting to discuss the whole process to come. I went to the meeting to learn of the plan and honestly had perfect trust of what they had in mind. . . that feeling did not last long.

There are 2 inlets for the neighborhood and 80% of the parking will have to enter through those 2 areas. The parking is going to be in 10 vacant combined lots (in the neighborhood) in 2 different spots along the ridge, which, combined are estimated to hold around 900 cars at a time. The hours of the open house will be from 8am to 855pm every day except Sunday (and Monday will close at 430pm). This goes from June through the end of August.

They expect 9,000 people to attend daily, I would guess that is about 6,000 vehicles- 80% of that is 4800, half those cars will have to drive through my 'side' of the neighborhood to park- so 2400 per day. With 13 operating hours in a day, that is 185 cars per HOUR which is 3 cars per minute (one car every 20 seconds). And that is assuming that everyone in attendance is perfectly spaced, however we know that there will be times during the day which are more popular than others. AND they will be checking tickets upon entrance to the parking lots. ("Um, I swear it's here in my purse somewhere, just a second, Johnny, grab my purse there is a ticket in there, it is yellow and says 'ticket' on it... No, its in the other pocket, ugh, hand me my purse. Oh, I thought I had it, I must have left it at home." - To which they will deny entry. "Sorry ma'am, you will have to leave now.") But that will then INCREASE the traffic cause now they have to leave and come BACK. Can you say TRAFFIC JAM?!?!?

Now, if I lived on a 4 lane road, perhaps all that would be acceptable. But I live on a road so narrow that when a car is parked at the curb, 2 cars going in opposite directions can not fit on the road without one of them pulling to the side behind the parked car. Designed on purpose that way to control speed along the roads but is a nightmare in this situation. And how in the world will I get out of my driveway with so much traffic on such small roads?

And did I mention I have a 5 year old who will be walking to and from school, and playing and riding her bike RIGHT smack in the middle of all this? (Ok, not in the middle of the road, but you get my point.)

The plan is to block of one side of the road and leave the other side for resident parking only. However who is truly going to enforce that? The meeting revealed that So. Jordan City will be issuing citations, however how will they know if that is my car or someone visiting the open house? No answer, not their problem, contact So Jordan City. OK fine, I get that the burden of upholding laws/rules is not left up to the church. So comes the question and a solution to it all, "Why don't you just bus people in from churches , then you could enter in off 40th south (which is not residential and is 3 lanes)?" Here is the kicker, COST. Are you KIDDING ME? COST? REALLY?

They have not spared a dime in cost thus far; they will have 6 tents with wooden floors, air conditioning, theaters and seating for 150. They have spent at least 1/2 million on landscaping and I don't even want to guess what the building and furnishings cost, yet they are worried about the cost of buses taking people to the temple from churches near by.

To be fair, I have no idea what the cost would be to hire out buses for 13 hours a day for 75 days but I simply can't believe that they are willing to flood up our neighborhood, put our children in danger, cause constant traffic problems and disrupt our lives to save on cost.


Cost, really. Cost.


I do not blame the church as an entity, nor do I find fault with any of the leadership in the church. I love and respect the people who attend and am pleased there was a committee taking care of all of the details to make sure it will be a pleasant experience (which I am sure it will be for each of the visitors). But I simply can't believe they are willing to tread so heavily on an entire community just to save a few bucks.

What's in a name?

Last night we attended a family party, as the adults were inside chatting the children were outside running around. Quite a while into the evening Kylie and her two cousins come in to inform us they have found a new friend. With this statement a little boy walked into the room. Kylie then began stating everything she knew about him.

He is 8 years old
He is short because he does not eat his vegetables
He only likes tomatoes and watermelon
He lives across the street
He has ghosts in his house

I then ask, "What is his name?" All three kids look at the little boy and in unison ask "What is your name?"

"My name is A.J." At this time you can see the turmoil in all three kids faces wondering how they were going to handle this dilemma. See, my nephew (who is standing there probably wondering who is going to win out in this situation) has the same name. All eyes are on him.

Softly, my nephew says "That's my name too"

At this point, the kids all ran outside only to return 5 minutes later with another story about their new found friend. "A.J. 2"

In KID world, everyone is happy.