In Celebration of Easter

On Fridays Alan and I often like to get away from the Antelope Valley and experience other things that California has to offer us. This weekend Alan suggested that we go to Forest Lawn in Glendale. For those of you who don't know, Forest Lawn is a mortuary/cemetery. Who goes to a cemetery for fun?, I thought, but didn't express this out loud. Not having a better suggestion myself, I went along with his idea and I'm glad that I did. Forest Lawn is actually a lot more than just a cemetery. It is a place where you can go to find solace and reflect on the life of the Savior...which was the perfect setting for Easter weekend. There are statues as well as museums that you can see but cameras are not allowed in a lot of the areas so my photos are limited.

This is a picture of the Christus which is beautifully surrounded by huge trees and he stands on top of a fountain representing living waters springing up unto eternal life, a reminder to me of the whole purpose of Christ's mission on the earth





In this statue, Christ is surrounded by little children reminding us of his petition "suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Forest Lawn is huge! I would like to know how many acres it has. This is just a small portion of its size, and yes, it goes beyond the hill way in the background. This pictures covers maybe an 8th of its actual size, but I'm just guessing.

There is a building you can go into where there is a humongous painting of the crucifixion. I couldn't even believe how big that painting was. I would say it was probably as high as a two-story building and probably 5 times as wide. It was awesome! There was another building that had a presentation about Leonardo DaVinci's painting of The Last Supper in stained glass. Five times, when trying to complete the piece, Judas Iscariot's character broke. Was God trying to say that Judas didn't deserve to be in the piece? On the 6th try, he didn't break. Maybe he was forgiven.

After we finished up at Forest Lawn Mortuary we ate lunch and then went to Griffith Observatory in Hollywood. Both of us had been there before but it had been a while. We learned a lot about the universe we live in. It was very crowded, but we had a lot of fun.

This is a close-up of the main dome.

Alan, with the Observatory in the background.

If you look closely, you can see the Hollywood sign on the mountain in the background...much better looking than what's in the foreground. (Click on the picture for a close-up view)

I'm so grateful that we could celebrate Easter this way, even though we celebrated it a couple of days early. I'm also grateful that this Easter weekend we can listen to General Conference and be reminded of who we are, what we are supposed to be doing, and reminisce on the life of Christ and the major role he has in our life. I know Christ lives, that he loves us, and wants us to be be happy. He will lead us to that happiness in this life and in the next.