Graceland/Memphis, TN

I’ll let Will go first: Memphis was a rather uneventful but calm stop. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and hung out at the trailer for the remainder of the day. On Sunday, we celebrated Easter. At church, we heard a wonderful talk from a sister, who then after her portion of the talk was done, read Bruce R. McConkie’s final witness from 1985. After the end of the talk and the closing prayer, we went home and had a restful rest of our Sunday. On Monday, we did the tour of Elvis’s house, which all things considered, was money well spent. It was amazing to see how Elvis captivated listeners and watchers for over two decades with #1 song after #1 song. He also owned two private planes, which were both very extravagant, to say the least. The impact that Elvis left on the world was absolutely mental. Thank you for reading. Onto Nashville! Overall Rating:7.8/10

Tamsin: We mostly just hung out in Memphis, trying to take it a bit easy.  Zina had EXPECTATIONS for Easter, which I very luckily was able to satisfy with a few things from the dollar store.  We tried to make more of Easter this week and I really appreciate Will taking the lead to make sure we did our Easter week study plan.  And, I did some family traditions like ham and egg float.  As the move forward, I hope I can do more to commemorate the true meaning of Easter.  We went to the West Memphis Branch.  West Memphis is in Arkansas and it was our only chance to get that state on our travel log.  The talks were very good and the sister who was the concluding speaker read the ENTIRE conference talk delivered by Bruce R. McConkie a few days before he died.  The kids thought it was a bit much but I thought it was good contemplation material.  This sister concluded her talk by saying that she wanted to glorify God and Jesus Christ everyday of her life.  I guess that is what I want also.  We managed to dye eggs in the afternoon.  We tried the “tie dye” option and I don’t recommend that.  Luckily I only had to add more water to the dye and it worked as usual.

Monday the main event was watching the Boston Marathon live on TV!  The BYU guy, Conner Manse, couldn’t quite close the gap to get on the podiam and got the lead medal. Still, a very good run for him. I am guessing that would be a surprise considering we also visited Graceland that day!  For some reason I had registered that Graceland was a bucket list type item.  I must have heard that from an Elvis fan!  It is good to pause here to say that I didn’t even know who Elvis was until we moved to England in 1977 and my new friend, Alison Kenny, was devastated by his death!  Then the BBC showed an Elvis movie every day during the Christmas break that year!  So, on Saturday night I made the kids watch Fun in Acapulco.  The museums at Graceland are extensive.  It was fun to see the 1970’s decorating that has been preserved.  Elvis was a superstar but visiting his home and museums made him seem like a person.  He certainly embraced his fame but he really liked people and left the movies so he could go back to live performance.  Most of us thought the hall of Elvis jumpsuits was our favorite part of the tour.  The evening was full of usual tasks, doing laundry and making & eating dinner.