No parking worries for those on FrontRunner
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By JaNAE FRANCIS
Standard-Examiner staff
jfrancis@standard.net
SALT LAKE CITY -- A number of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, traveling from Top of Utah locations, chose to ride FrontRunner to the 178th Semiannual General Conference on Saturday.
Aaron and Mary Beard, of Mantua, drove to Ogden early Saturday to catch the train there just after 7 a.m.
Mary Beard said she also took FrontRunner to the general women's session last weekend.
"It worked out perfect," she said. "When we get off the FrontRunner, TRAX is already waiting. Temple square is a block and a half. There are no complications. You get right on and right off."
Beard said the difference between that experience and trying to find a parking space is dramatic.
This weekend's general conference is the first one in which church members have been able to take FrontRunner to the event.
But FrontRunner will not be in operation today because it is Sunday.
Alex Hone, of Pleasant View, also drove to Ogden to catch FrontRunner because the rail service does not extend to his hometown on Saturdays.
"It's more convenient," Hone said. "You don't have to worry about parking."
Hone, 20, said he rides FrontRunner regularly. It was his first time to attend conference. He's always watched it on television in the past.
"Usually, it's hard to get tickets," he said. "Someone asked me if I wanted theirs."
Newlyweds Rebecca and Shay Thomson, of Barstow, Calif., hopped on FrontRunner in Ogden, where they were staying with Shay's grandparents.
"My dad works for the Metrolink in L.A. I'm used to riding the train," Shay Thomson said.
The husband said he's traveled to Utah three times before to attend conference, but he's never been able to go inside the Conference Center.
On Saturday, the couple headed to Salt Lake City early, even though they did not have a ticket to the event. They were lucky to receive extra tickets from someone else on FrontRunner.
"In California, it's hard to get tickets," Shay Thomson said. "They don't give them out that much."
Full-time missionaries Harold and Margaret Hansen, of Kaysville, also took the train to conference.
The couple has served a family and church history mission for the last four years. They said they ride the train every day they work.
"We really enjoy it," Margaret Hansen said. "It's a good way to go, especially so before the Legacy Parkway was completed."
She said the train was especially easy for conference.
"You don't have to find parking," she said. "It's easier, even if it is raining, and we had to bring an umbrella."
Ernesto A. Ledesma chose FrontRunner for this trip to conference -- his first.
"It's good to see America," said the 49-year-old. "Only a few can make it here to conference."
Ledesma, bishop of the Mansilingan First Ward in Bacolod, Philippines, said he had arrived in Layton late last night and got up early to get on the train.
He traveled with William Montoya, of Tarzana Ward, Calif., also originally from the Philippines.
Montoya was staying with the former missionary who baptized him 40 years ago, who also had welcomed Ledesma into his home.
"My missionary advised me that this way is the only way to get to conference," Montoya said.
Visiting from Kamloops, British Columbia, was Miranda Kuss. She said she took two weeks out of her senior year of high school to come to Utah.
"My mom was raised on trains," she said of her choice to ride FrontRunner. "I get to go home and brag."
Staying with the family of a former missionary she met in Canada, Kuss said the train also gave her more independence to do things on her own.
"I always had this thing for traveling," she said.
And after the first session Saturday, Kuss said it was well worth her trip to be in the room when a new temple to be built in her home country of Canada was announced.
"It's amazing," she said.
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