Today I am going to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit my dad, who lives there. Today is also the first day of the LDS Church General Conference. I have a flight on Southwest airlines from Salt Lake City to Tulsa through the Phoenix “Sky Harbor” airport near downtown Phoenix. I had an experience once before with this airport during the last Christmas season. At that time, I became stranded in Denver for three days because of a blizzard that dumped up to 4 feet of snow in some parts of Denver. My first chance to leave Denver (I was supposed to go to Kansas City, but I just wanted to get out of Denver at this point) was to go to the Phoenix airport. So I took the flight out and came to Phoenix. However, after arriving in Phoenix, I discovered that it would be nearly as difficult to leave Phoenix as it was to leave Denver because of the holiday crowds. So I ended up spending another night in the Phoenix airport. I went downstairs and began waiting in the line at the Southwest ticket counter at about 2:30 in the morning, sleeping on the floor until the ticket counter opened. Eventually, that day, I was able to catch a flight to Kansas City and was home later in the night.
One great thing about the Phoenix airport that helped me during that time was that it had free internet access and I had my laptop computer with me. So although I am tired of this airport, it has some good qualities. This airport also seems to have few problems with weather delays.
Today, when I first came here and began waiting at my gate for my plane to leave, I thought I would download the first session of General Conference and start listening to it. As I was listening to it, I noticed two BIRDS fly in front of me. Of course, this airport is indoors, and so it was funny to see some birds in the airport. I was able to take a couple of pictures of one of these birds, which was going around eating crumbs on the floor. I put the pictures below. You can see the small bird next to a chair in the center of the pictures:
A bird at the sky harbor airport (1)
A bird at the sky harbor airport (2)
After taking pictures of this bird, I finished downloading the first sessions of conference. As I was listening to conference, there was a minor scuffle at the gate ticket counter. I didn’t hear what happened, but a man came to the counter and began to get very mad and to rant about something. I then noticed that two security personnel came to the gate to assist the Southwest employee should there be any problems. I kind of understand whatever this man’s problem was…he had probably missed his flight. He also had a wife and two children with him, and I’m sure this added to his troubles. Some other Southwest employees came to the counter to assist this ticket agent as this man continued to be angry, and hopefully everything turned out OK with all parties. So now I am continuing to listen to General Conference. I’m excited to learn that Elder Henry Eyring will now be in the First Presidency. It will be good to hear more of him. He came to our Stake Conference two weeks ago and it was a special experience to have him there. I will always remember the words he shared about praying and submitting our will to the Lord’s will. After writing this, I think I will find something else to do for the remainder of my time here, perhaps focus a little more intently on the words from the General Conference.
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