Under The Radar

We've been taking it easy in Calgary with my relatives, Sue and Brian for the past week. Cooking good vegan food and sleeping late has been fun. Sorry about the lack of posts but I'll try to catch up.

Last week, before leaving Idaho Falls Kat made us visit the visitor centre at the Temple of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Kat has an unexpected and profound interest in Mormons after driving through their country and reading The 19th Wife, a novel. The visitors centre welcomed us and an elder in a suit with blizzard dandruff on his shoulders proceeded to testify. He sat us in front of a larger than life sized statue of Jesus with arms outstretched and a painted celestial backdrop behind him. The elder pushed a button on a nearby column and the presentation begun. The voice of Jesus came through the overhead speakers, quoting the gospel. After this he led us to a touch screen monitor surrounded by The Book of Mormon in every language it has been translated in. Here we leaned the story of how the Book of Mormon came into being. Frank Smith translated 'another testament to Jesus Christ' from plates of gold in 1830 after the angel Moroni directed him to where it was buried near his house. Following this presentation we were lead into a type of mini theater where we watched a few other short videos, recordings of lectures from some of the Apostles of the LDS Church. It was here that Kat started asking logical questions like "why are all the apostles and prophets in the Mormon church are all male?" I made the fastest exit politely possible but we were not allowed leave before we had been given a book of Mormon, guides to the LDS Church, bookmarks, a promise that I had received the most wonderful gift and a convenient picture of Jesus with children that I stuck above my head in the car.

Once we were finally out of the temple we hit the road to Grand Falls, Montana. An otherwise uneventful drive culminated in us sleeping in an overpriced Motel 6, reading until early morning and waking with only just enough time to check out. After a delay at the border we arrived to Calgary in the evening.

Sue and Brian gave us tickets to see an ice hockey game between rivals the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers. We had an awesome time, the seats were great, Calgary won 4-3 in overtime and one of the many fights culminated in a puddle of blood on the ice. I don't think I've ever seen Kat so exited.