Pocatello Idaho Temple
My adventure to visit the Pocatello Idaho Temple started Tuesday at 6:13. That’s A.M…
That’s when the Utah Transit Authority 821 bus stops at the street corner less than a block from my mother‘s house. I would catch it up to the Provo Frontrunner station (commuter train), then take the Frontrunner to Salt Lake City, Then catch the Trax train system over to the airport. At the airport was the rental car I would take up to the Pocatello Idaho Temple.
If everything went according to plan, I would be on my way to the Pocatello Temple by about 9:30. Instead, I was on my way to the Pocatello Idaho Temple by 8:30. That was significant, which I’ll talk about later.
It is 170 miles (two hours and 22 minutes), from the Salt Lake International Airport to the Pocatello Idaho temple. There’s lots of barren ground in between those two points. Still, it is beautiful.
I came to Utah this time to attend my niece’s wedding on Saturday. On Sunday I checked into booking my return flight. The best deal was a flight back to Washington DC on Friday which was only $71. Prior to that it would be close to $300. With the flight booked for Friday, I was now here for a few days including Thanksgiving. I recently realized the Church dedicated the Pocatello Idaho temple late in 2021 and I had not included it on my list of temples to visit. Perhaps this would be a good time to do it.
The rental car is only $25 a day (Nissan mid-sized) with unlimited miles. Better than that, some of the speed limits between Salt Lake City and Pocatello are 80 miles an hour. Once in the car I was on my way. The farther north I went, the more snow I saw.
Breakfast, of course, is important. Because I am going to the Pocatello Idaho Temple, I threw my full support into McDonald’s and their potato products. In this case it was the hashbrowns that came with combo number two.
And in keeping with the potato theme, I scored on the McDonald’s number one Big Mac combo when I left Pocatello!
I did a proxy endowment in this temple. It was the fifth one in a group of five brothers whose work I have been doing recently. It feels great to get it done! I will be sealing them to their parents in about two weeks in the Laie Hawaii Temple.
The Pocatello Idaho Temple sits up in the hills on the eastern side of the city. Look for the colors in depiction of two flowers in the interior designs of the temple: the Idaho state flower, the syringa, and the bitterroot flower, known for its coral type color. I will probably frame this photo in the coral color of the bitterroot plant.
The Pocatello Idaho Temple is the 170th operating temple of the Church. It was dedicated in November 2021 by President M. Russell Ballard. It is the 80th temple I have visited, and done temple work in, since January 2017.