August Happenings 2019 - Book of Mormon, Terrain Race, and Sacrament Meeting

On Friday Alison and I got dressed up and went out for dinner and a show. We headed to downtown Salt Lake City. We went to Sapa for dinner. It is a sushi bar located at the edge of downtown. I used to go there for lunch occasionally when I worked EY, and I wanted to take Alison there. It did not disappoint. The sushi was excellent. We ate a variety of different sushi rolls – each with a distinctive flavor. Sapa serves high-quality food and great service.

After dinner, we parked at City Creek. We had time before our show so we wandered around looking for dessert. We came across the grand opening of Zeppe’s Italian Ice. To celebrate their grand opening, they were given away free small cups of custard with Italian ice. They were free so we gave it a try – they were okay. We finished our treat and headed toward the theater. Right outside the theater, there was a Busker festival. A busker is another name for a street performer. I did not know that before looking it up.  Allegedly there were supposed to be 100+ street performers all plying their trade. It sounded like an intriguing way to spend our remaining time before the show. However, it was a disappointment. There were a handful of street performers, and none of the performances really caught our attention. However, we made a wonderful find – right across from the theater is a little place called Last Course. It is a dessert-only establishment. They sell a variety of ice cream scoops and other hot desserts. We stopped in and looked at the menu. It looked quite appealing. We thought we might stop by after the show. When the Buskar festival was a bust we decided to indulge in a dessert from Last Course before the show. We had the White Chocolate Raspberry Cake. It was divine. So glad we found this amazing little dessert spot.

Then it was time for the show. We saw The Book of Mormon at the Eccles Theater. We had not planned to see this musical, but I received an email with information about entering for lottery tickets. I won some tickets and they were orchestra-level seats at a low price. Alison and I have been curious about this musical, but never enough to buy tickets. This seemed like our best chance.
Alison and I had a few lengthy discussions regarding the show in the hours and days after we saw it. The first 20 or so minutes were great. The first few numbers are funny and entertaining. We have listened to the first song “Hello!” numerous times. It is a catchy and fun song. From that point on the show is mostly downhill. The cast was talented and the production quality was very high, but some moments made us squirm in our seats. Overall the commentary of this show on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was not the portion that made us uncomfortable. In fact, in many cases, the commentary was funny and hit close to home. The play contains some smart and interesting satire about LDS religious culture, but also never really takes time to explore the nuances of these points, instead it settles for the cheap and easy laugh. Neither Alison nor I are fans of the “South Park” brand of crude humor. This musical really devolves into that style when the missionaries arrive in Africa. The most cringeworthy moments of the show come from making wildly inappropriate jokes about Uganda and Africa. This show has not aged particularly well in the past 8 years, and while there were aspects we found enjoyable and entertaining we have no desire to see it again.

Even though this was not our favorite musical, it was an enjoyable date night. It was fun to dress up and go out together and do something we do not do very often. We often reserve more formal events like this to experience during our travels or to celebrate special events such as birthdays or anniversaries. This was more spontaneous, which made it kind of special.

On Saturday, I participated in the Terrain Race. It was basically a 5K with obstacles such as balance beams, rope climbs, monkey bars, wagon pulls, object carries, mud pits, wall climbs, and more. It was “free” to sign up (there was a location fee and insurance fee), but they then tried to find other ways to drive revenue. For example, they charged people $20 for parking at the race site. Fortunately, Blake and Debbie lived by the race site so we could park at their house and avoid this fee.  Anyway, I signed up a few months ago, and a bunch of my co-workers heard about it and signed up. I was hoping to see them at the race, but there was some miscommunication and I ended up running in a different time slot. The race was fairly laid back and they did not even keep track of time. I would say about 80% of the participants walked it, but many skipped out on the obstacles. I ran the whole thing and tried to complete every obstacle. I finished in 37 minutes. I thought the most challenging/interesting obstacle was the mud pits. They had two sets of mud pits that were 2-3 feet deep. They were full of holes and very uneven, making it very challenging to run through without falling down. I made it without getting too muddy. Honestly, this was not my favorite race. I find I like straight-up running better. A few of the obstacles were interesting. After this experience, I will stick to regular races.

On Sunday Alison and I were involved in sacrament meeting. Alison played a beautiful rendition of “A Poor Wayfaring of Grief” and I was asked to speak. The gist of the talk was about, how we can be more like the Savior by seeing as He sees, by serving as He served, and by trusting that His grace is sufficient. Alison’s parents heard we were speaking and wanted to come, along with her grandmother, and her siblings. My grandma also attended our ward to hear us as well. After sacrament, we had a little get-together at our home for our family. Alison made some delicious orange rolls. We also had some breakfast casserole along with sides of watermelon and butternut squash. It kind of turned into a bigger thing than we expected, but it was fun to get together with family and share a little bit of our faith together.