Salt Lake and Ohio

We are happy about a new sushi restaurant we found recently: Wild Ginger. Is it authentic sushi? Not a chance! I noticed the sushi chef and waiters speaking Chinese to each other and English to the kitchen staff, who are all Latinos. We don't much care because the service is good and so is the food.

I went to go help Becca and our friends at the farm at Thanksgiving Point. We took the dogs and I was shocked to see how all the animals were very curious about our two little chihuahua mutts.
 

I forget if our friends owned this pig or the other in this pen. They're fattening it up for the Holidays.

Becca will be in Ohio for a couple of weeks helping her sister with the baby. Her flight left Salt Lake at 6:00am last Saturday morning. She had two very out of the way layovers before she got to Detroit in the early evening. Her parents picked her up there and then they all drove another three hours to Ohio.

She was no doubt exhausted after getting up at 3:30am and traveling all day but that didn't keep her from playing with the nephews before bed. She sent me the video below that evening.

Since I had a German group dinner in Salt Lake later that evening I spent the day there after I dropped Becca off at the airport. I spent the early morning in the Salt Lake Temple and am really happy I did. It's amazing how refreshed and centered I feel after going to the temple. It really motivates me to be a better person. I always see someone I know at almost every temple I go to and this time I met up with a young man from Modesto who is on a mission at the Family History Center in Salt Lake.

I also went and saw the new Joseph Smith movie. I was, of course, moved by the bravery the Prophet Joseph and the early members of the Church but I also found myself nit picking. Why highlight THAT part of Joseph's life? Was that experience REALLY worth putting in the movie at the exclusion of others? I then remembered that the movie was not a documentary or your typical Hollywood movie. The Church isn't going to make a movie just to entertain. The movie, at its heart, is a vehicle to teach true principles in order to point people to Christ and Salvation, not to break box office records.

I also had a great time getting coached from a sister missionary at Family History Library and rested for a little while in the Tabernacle, where I took the above video. The organist (who can hardly be seen) has mad skills. I also visited the Lion House where I had previously visited Grandma and Grandpa Boothe several times during their mission. I also had some very nice chats with a few of the sister missionaries on Temple Square.

I enjoyed hanging out and speaking German with my friends from "Stammtisch" (Reserved Table). I'm getting better but I need to spend more time actually talking in German to make the switch into fluency. We are quite a varied group, which makes for good dinner conversation.

The frost is coming to Utah and we will soon have no more apples nor any more tasty apple pies. Grant is arriving too late! My brother will be home from his mission TOMORROW! He'll report to the Stake High Council in Modesto and then travel out here to Utah. We're grateful to the Atwater Boothes for picking him up. We're also really excited to have him out hear in Utah!

Lucy and I got snowed on last week while I was out hiking. Iphone cameras are good at taking close up pictures but not great at panoramic shots. It was actually snowing quite a bit more than the picture shows. I wished I had put Lucy's sweater on her before we left since she has a paper thin fur coat. She was a hearty little thing; we soldiered on through the snow and had a great hike anyway.