Payson Utah and Manti Utah Temples

It's been a long time since I've used this blog. So much has happened since April of last year. I posted a lot on Instagram. It's a pretty good record of places we've been and stuff that has happened. 

As of next week, on February 11th, Roger and I will have been married for 37 years. Every year, we try to get away near our anniversary. It frequently happens before or after the week of Valentine's Day since our anniversary is so close to when everyone is celebrating love. We also like to watch the weather closely; and Alena needs a babysitter so we have to make sure Mariel is available, which generally means these trips are often booked last minute.

This year, we took a trip just a few hours down south. It was difficult to decide where to go, but I was inspired that we could visit two temples on our way to Richfield, Utah. Richfield is only 16 minutes north of Monroe, Utah which has some free hot springs on the hills above it. I learned about those hot springs when I did a general internet search about Utah hot springs. There's another hot springs nearby, Mystic, which has more facilities, more people, and requires reservations where you pay around $28 per person for a two-hour visit. I was not interested in visiting there. The Red Hill Hot Springs looked perfect. I was also very interested in seeing Fishlake National Forest which is sort of near Richfield. Also near there is Fish Lake and Pando the Aspen Clone organism.

The Payson Utah Temple is one hour from our home. The Manti Temple is one hour from the Payson Temple. Richfield is one hour from the Manti Temple. It was the perfect first day of our trip and a fabulous way to celebrate our Sealing Anniversary. 

I don't know if we've ever before gone to two endowment sessions in one day. This felt extra special.

The Payson Temple has gorgeous stained glass throughout. I'd been there for a wedding a few years ago on my own. It was Roger's first visit.

We drove straight to Manti after our session. We had lunch in nearby Ephraim. It didn't take us as long as I'd planned, so we were able to make it into an earlier session. 

The Manti Temple is probably my favorite temple. I absolutely love that they were able to preserve most of Minerva Teichert's murals. There are now screens that block some views, but you can see around them as you move around. You still go from one room to another which makes the session fly by. I don't sit still for as long or as well as I used to. I stayed alert the whole time. It makes me wish we lived closer to Manti.

We walked around the temple and took pictures after the session. 

The stairs at the back of the temple lead up to the main level which is on a hill above the parking lot. So we walked down the grassy hill to our car. The grassy hill had clearly been visited by many deer, so we watched where we walked.

Then we drove to Richfield to check into our hotel. We changed into swimsuits and drove to Monroe, Utah's Red Hill Hot Springs right afterwards.

I'll post pictures from the hot springs and later destinations in separate posts.