Thursday, December 10, 2009

From the office of the First Presidency...

I had a once in a lifetime opportunity yesterday. All the youth in the ward got to go downtown, and tour the First Presidency's office in the Church Administration Building.
Our Bishop, Bishop Mortensen works as the Assistant secretary to the First Presidency, so he showed us around and answered a lot of questions. It was really neat. We got to see President Monson's office(but not enter), and we saw a couple of their meeting rooms(one is a board room where some committee meetings are held(general welfare, etc.) The other is another meeting room for the Apostles and First Presidency along with the Presidency of the Seventy.


That is where they meet most often, and if you look in the photo, in the left corner is the door that leads to the Prophet's office. Our Bishop has the responsability to open it for the Prophet. The wood in the room was imported from Russia, and the door is at least 3 inches thick, so it is heavy and President Monson always jokes with our Bishop because its hard. One day they were joking and The Bishop mentioned he was doing push-ups to get ready to open it and Pres. Monson said: "Oh really? Well lets see!" So Bishop Mortensen dropped down and gave the Prophet 10 push-ups and got up and Pres. Monson said: "I meant show me by opening the door!" Funny story.


This is the tree inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building



We went through the lights, but it was so cold(like 2 or 3 degrees F) that we hurried and left and went to Crown Burger. That is apparently a tradition they have, but this is the first time that we were able to see the offices.
SO overall it was a great, cold night!