Day 47: The Temple Square

After lunch we moved down the hill to Temple Square, this is where the LDS has its headquarters, a bit like St Peter's Square and Rome is to the Catholic Church. It is very pretty, but crowded with buildings as there is the temple, the Tabernacle, the Meeting House, which was the first church built in SLC, Joseph Smith Building and two visitor centers. We did not expect to visit all of them in one afternoon, but did our best. We were so fortunate that a couple of very lovely young ladies, who were on their mission, were able to give us a tour of some of the buildings, not only did the tell us about the buildings, but also we learned a lot about them and their faith as well. Sister Pondolanan comes from the Phillippines and Sister Sorto comes from El Salvador.
We were most impressed with the Tabernacle, this is a big meeting house, very similar in layout to many contemporary non-conformist churches in Europe, although its design is unique as it was designed by a bridge building engineer who more or less built nine bridges side by side and closed in the ends to make a big building.
The Tabernacle is the musical centre for the LDS, this is where the Tabernacle Choir practice and perform and also where there is a large organ, which is used for a daily recital at 12.00. Of course we were well past that by the time we got there. However, as it happened, there was a 'VIP tour' taking place, with some obvious interest in the organ because as we sat admiring the building the organist appears and starts to play, this apparently is very unusual. So were were able to hear the organ, with a practically empty Tabernacle. It was very impressive. Although the organist did play Sousa's Liberty Bell March, which had a most amazing incongruity in its picture of Monty Python inside the Tabernacle.
Thank you to Sisters Pondolanan and Sorto for giving us a great tour of your Temple square.
I have put a couple of recordings up of You Tube:
Liberty Bell March  by John Philip Sousa and an interesting demonstration of the acoustic qualities of the Tabernacle, which ends with a recording of Till We Met Again. 
We also went round the Temple itself, which was very impressive, being made from local granite and big.