The Stanleys: Tom

So I (Tom) am taking my one and only college science course this semester to get the credit I need for graduation. I have been focusing on my degree subjects for so long now, that this science class is kind of refreshing. I had a lot to pick from, but I decided to try geology because it seemed relevant to history. Since the first day of class I have loved it. I am just so interested in everything we talk about. The history of the earth, how rocks and landscapes are formed, volcanoes, tectonic plates; these are all things that I'm so fascinated by. I am excited to go to class everyday anticipating what more I will learn. It has been a neat experience.

Anyway, there was a field trip fee attached to the class which I figured would pay for some local trips like to the Grand Tetons or to Yellowstone Park. It turned out that the fee covered a four-day trip across Utah and Arizona culminating at the Grand Canyon. I had never been to that region of the country and it was a great deal for the price we paid, so I took advantage of it. I was hard to leave the girls behind with Tristan after just having been apart from them for so long recently, but Tristan said it was a rare opportunity and that I should do it. I promised to find the prettiest rocks and bring them back to the girls. That was my motivation for rock hunting on the whole trip.

We did lots of cool things but the most amazing thing was, of course, the Grand Canyon. It is one of those things that must be experienced. Even after knowing a lot about how the canyon was formed and what it was made of and how old it was and all of that, when I looked at it, it just blew my mind! It was most literally incomprehensible. I thought that it is like our understanding of God. No matter how much we know about Him, or how much our scriptures and our prophets and our theology reveals about Him, there are those moments when we really think about Him that it simply blows our minds - it is literally beyond our comprehension. I guess it all shows how big and INFINITE God really is.

One more thing, our professor shared an insight that connected our experience to Jesus Christ's Atonement. It is that even though Christ knew about his role in suffering the Atonement for all mankind from the very framing of the Plan in the beginning, when if came time for him to actually go through with it, to experience it, the realization of it became almost too much. He asked if there was another way. Then, when he realized there was not an alternative means for our eternal salvation except through this experience of his, he suffered through it all for us anyway. It was not until he experienced it that he understood God more than he had before. It is the same with us. Experiencing things that are apparently beyond our comprehension help us grow a little bit closer to the One whom we can't comprehend. This is comforting, because I know God knows all of us personally even though He is so grand. I guess that is why they call it the Grand Canyon. Wrap your mind around that.

Here are some pictures:

This is the Bingham Copper Mine west of Salt Lake City. It is the largest open pit mine in the world. It is so huge. Those little black dots are trucks that are as big as a two story house and carry 350 tons of rock out of the pit every trip.

This is Snow Canyon near St. George, Utah where we camped the first night. We camped down in the upper left of the photo. A couple of us did some night hikes on those sandstone mountains.

Here I am standing on a field of basalt. Behind me is the remains of the volcano that produced all of the lava to create the basalt. It is about 20 feet thick.

Found some dinosaur foot prints in the rock. I must of just missed him.

Here was a chunk of gypsum that I got to hack out of a solid wall of it that we found in the middle of the desert of northern Arizona.

Standing on the edge a rock hanging over the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Here is the Grand Canyon looking the other way.

This is best I can do to try give a perspective of how huge the canyon really is. It is like mile deep. A kayaker on that river would be a tiny dot. The photo doesn't do it justice, you just have to see it.

Here I am standing int he mouth of a volcano near St. George. We climbed up the face of it and watched the sun set when we got to the top.

On the way home stopped at the St. George Temple and looked at some paintings in the visitor's center. A great end, to a pretty awesome and pretty spiritual trip. As I thought back to the things we saw, I understood why the ancients went to the tops of the mountains to have the same experiences we do inside the temple, to be close to God.