We started the day with a visit to church. Debi’s brother was in town with his newborn and they were going to bless him, so we went to sacrament meeting to attend the blessing. Since I go to church a couple times a year anyway, I counted this for one of those visits and took some notes. But, more interestingly, this was the first time Toren had attended a church service. He’s not much of a fan. We brought snacks and toys, and he took advantage of those, but he still didn’t make it through the hour-long service and Debi had to take him out for a bit. When he came back in, he was a bit grumpy.
After the service, I was carrying Toren out and asked him, “Why are you being so grumpy today?” He said, “I didn’t want to listen to those people talk.” (FYI, “those people” were the speakers.)
Through my laughter, I replied, “Most people don’t want to listen to those people talk.”
After sacrament meeting, we went back to Debi’s parents’ house for brunch and played there for a bit, then went to Debi’s sister’s house and watched a video. Then most everyone took a nap while I got ready for my evening presentation.
I had arranged another presentation on my book to the Atheists of Utah. We met at a bar in SLC and about 30 people showed up. The presentation seemed to go well, and it was nice to have an audience of people familiar with Mormonism, so they better understood some of my stories and some of the more esoteric things I mentioned. The presentation went from 5:00 until around 7:30 and some freethinking friends stopped by, too. Good stuff!
After the presentation I headed back to Debi’s sister’s house to get ready for the next leg of our trip.
daily mileage: 30; total mileage: 5,208
states visited: no new states; total state count: 22 (plus 1 district and 1 other country)
