| Salt Lake City |
 |
 |
| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
 |
| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
|
| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
|
| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
|
| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
|
| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
|
| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
|
| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
|
| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
|
| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
|
|
|
|
Temple Square is the place
Thousands of Oly visitors are taking in the historic site
By Twila Van Leer
Deseret News staff writer
Visiting Salt Lake City without making a stop on Temple Square would be like going to Rome and not seeing St. Peter's Cathedral.
"It's just what you do," Alan Haggland of Auburn, Wash, said. "It would be hard to visit Salt Lake City and not come here."
Sunday afternoon, he was making mental comparisons of a visit he made to the Utah capital 40 years ago. "The city has changed a lot. I'm very impressed," he said.
The square, historic center of the city, has attracted thousands of Olympic visitors, President M. Garfield Cook of the Temple Square Mission said. With some 70,000 out-of-towners in the city, and a turn-over of that number every 2.5 days, there is plenty of opportunity to show off the church's prime tourist attraction.
"We're getting just a nice steady number — 10,000 to 20,000 a day," said President Cook. That is two to three times the number expected for this time of year and will tally some 200,000 over the life of the Olympics, he said. "It isn't as many as we might have anticipated but a good, steady flow."
The square competes with many events and sites available to visitors, he said. The mission added 14 missionaries to deal with the increased visitations, he said.
Bent on avoiding any impression that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has tried to "run" the Olympics, the tone on Temple Square during the Games is one of educating and informing Olympic visitors without pushing the LDS message. Missionaries assigned to the square were being helpful but restrained Sunday, while outside the walls of the square, anti-LDS groups unabashedly pushed their literature, some of it designed to look as if it were sponsored by the church.
"Many of the people who come want to know more about the church. Some of them want to go in the Temple," Sister Adrienne Criddle of Oakland, Calif, said.
She and her missionary companion, Sister Natasha Jordan of Perth, Australia, steer those interested in seeing the inside of the building — open only to worthy members of the church — to the South Visitor Center, which has displays of temple-related items, she said.
A trio of college students from Kalispell, Mont., was attracted by the highly visible "big castle" behind the square's walls. "We know a little about the Mormons," said Andy Lilienthall of Kalispell. He and Nathan Friesz and Orin Englishbee were intrigued by the varied architecture on the historic square.
"We think it's great. Too bad we can't hear the Tabernacle Choir," said Glenn Pohly, who was visiting Temple Square with family members. Having a son and daughter-in-law, Don and Theresa Pohly, residing in the vicinity (Huntsville) was double incentive for Pohly and Helen Olive, both of San Antonio, Texas, to come to Utah for the Olympics.
If they had been on the square earlier in the day, they probably could have heard the choir, too. The regular Sunday morning recital was "almost full," said church spokesman Doug Balls. "But we managed to fit in everyone who came." Performances of the church's contribution to the Cultural Olympiad, the "Light of the World" production, also have been sold out, with nightly audiences of near 20,000. A few tickets are held back to accommodate out-of-state visitors for each performance, he said.
Crowds for the regular Assembly Hall Concert Series, Balls said, have been somewhat thin, but he attributes that to the athletic event competitions that occur at the same time.
Jim and Jan Schneeberger of Wisconsin strolled Sunday past a Tabernacle posted with signs promoting the Cultural Olympiad being held in conjunction with the Olympics and proclaiming church members to be "Friends to all Nations."
The Schneebergers toured Temple Square to help fill the time until the next curling competition in which their son, Mike, will again play for the U.S. team.
"They've won three, lost four. If they can hang in for two more games, they have a chance for the playoffs," Jim Schneeberger said.
The church's media center has been an unqualified success, church public affairs director Michael Otterson said. Trying to gauge the demand and prepare to serve the world's visiting journalists was a guessing game.
"We didn't know what was realistic," Otterson said. But by the end of the first week of the Olympics, 1,154 journalists from 39 countries had used the center's resources in the Joseph Smith Building, including the availability of translation services and electronic equipment to send out their stories and broadcasts. The majority, 685, have been from the United States. Japan is second with 83, followed by Canada with 48 and Germany 45.
Requests for information involving the church have been extremely varied, he said. Some of the visiting journalists have requested interviews with LDS families from their own countries. "And many of them have wanted to interview a Tabernacle Choir member."
Otterson felt the opening ceremonies went a long way toward dispelling "preconceptions" about church members and said the "vast majority of the publicity about the church has been very fair."
The public affairs workers and 350 volunteers who have staffed the center are expecting a "spike" at the end of next week as the Olympic competitions come to a close.
"Then we'll handle the Paralympics from our offices," Otterson said.
E-MAIL: tvanleer@desnews.com
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February 18, 2002
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