kds kupboard: Week 6 - June 3-10, 2018

The big news this week is that we finished our level 1 training for work on the international floor. We now have our blue lanyard and are working on the floor as helpers with guests. It has been a very busy first week with guests. I am learning a lot as I attempt to finish level 2 training and help guest who visit the library.

Elder Koberstein also finished his Basic training for the family history library.

This week Elder Koberstein and I had a nice bike ride on our preparation day, Tuesday. We biked from Bountiful to the LDS Hospital on 8th and C Street for my routine INR blood test. This ride was an easy down hill ride to Salt Lake City and then a big climb for the test. The picture is Elder Koberstein waiting for me with the bikes. Riding to the hospital we had debated going over capital hill to the hospital but decided against it. There was heavy traffic on 89 and no cross walk which would make it unsafe.

When I finished the test we looked down one of the cross streets and saw the capital building in the distances. We decided to bike over and home that way.

This is what we saw at the end of the road. It is a beautiful view of the capital building but there is a very steep deep canyon between us and it. We later leaned that we were looking at City Creek Canyon. This canyon has city creek at the bottom as one would guess because of the name. It definitely was not bikeable or even very easily hikeable to the capital building from our view point.

Elder Koberstein looked up City Creek on Wikipedia. I was impressed about its importance to the settlement of Salt Lake City. It is still used today as the water supply for parts of the city. This picture is overlooking City Creek Canyon toward temple square. If you look close you can see the spires of the Salt Lake Temple. It was a beautiful view. I think a ride up or down City Creek Canyon is on my bucket list of thinks to do in Salt Lake City.

"City Creek is a small but historically important mountain stream that flows from City Creek Canyon and across part of Salt Lake City, Utah, and into the Jordan River which empties into the Great Salt Lake. City Creek's head is about 8 miles (13 km) up City Creek Canyon northeast of Downtown Salt Lake City. The entire stream measures only about 14.5 miles (23 km) long. Melting snow from adjacent mountains provides most of City Creek's currents, but the stream flows year-round because of natural springs at the head of the creek.
Until 1882 City Creek served as the city's primary water supply, and it continues to provide drinking water to The Avenues and northern parts of Salt Lake City.

History
Vanguards of the first Mormon pioneer settlers of Utah camped by the mouth of City Creek Canyon July 22, 1847. This area is now about the intersection between State Street and North Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. The stream originally forked into a stream heading south through Washington Square and the primary branch flowing west, toward Temple Square and approximately down North Temple Street. Both forks emptied into the Jordan River.

The vanguard, led by Orson Pratt, diverted the stream to soften the soil and plant crops. By July 24 when Brigham Young's party arrived, five acres (20,000 m²) of potatoes had already been planted. Young named the creeks in Salt Lake Valley on August 22, 1847, calling City Creek such because it was in the heart of the city that the pioneers planned....

In 1909 the creek was placed in an underground conduit down North Temple Street from outside of Memory Grove to west of the State Fairpark where the water exits into the Jordan River."

The afternoon was spent in Provo, where we visited the BYU bookstore and Elder Koberstein shared a bench with Cosmo for a few minutes.

We attended a session in the Provo Temple. When Elder Koberstein and I were students at BYU we were asked to contribute to the building fund for this temple. It was not dedicated before we left BYU and we have not had the opportunity to attend in its walls even though we have attended the MTC on two different occasions. It was a fun afternoon. To my surprise a roommate from Ricks Colleg, Gwen Lund, was working on Tuesday afternoon shift. What a tender mercy. It has been many years since we have been together.

We finished our preparation day with a visit with Rex Ivie. We miss our neighbor in Antioch and friend in the gospel for over 30 years. Had a sonderful visit. He is keeping active and serving other in the home he now lives in.