- The Muhlestein family's Palm Sunday walk in Lindon has grown significantly since it began in 2012.
- Over a thousand participants joined this year in the walk that ended with a devotional near the Lindon Utah Temple.
LINDON — What began as a small family tradition over a decade ago is now a Palm Sunday tradition for hundreds of people, as the Muhlestein family has continued inviting others to their walk in Lindon.
Over a thousand people showed up to the short walk on Sunday, while singing hymns and waving palm fronds, that ended with a devotional near the Lindon Utah Temple.
Kerry Muhlestein said the walk traditionally ends at a church near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and when they learned that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was building a temple near them, the family decided to make a field by that temple the end of their walk.
Julianne Muhlestein met her husband at the BYU Jerusalem Center, and they returned with their family in 2011 when Kerry Muhlestein was teaching there. She said the Palm Sunday walk was a wonderful event for them, and in 2012, they decided to do the same thing at home.
She said her kids felt a little weird walking alone, so they invited a few other families the next year, and it gradually grew. She said they try to invite members of other faiths as well, and make it a general Christian celebration.
"We've loved being able to have an event where families can come and just focus on Easter and Easter week," she said.
She said turning her children's minds to Easter earlier in the week through a Christ-focused event helped them focus on the spiritual aspect of the holiday, rather than the egg hunts.
Kerry Muhlestein said it is a wonderful experience to feel the unity that comes from celebrating Christ with a group of people from various Christian faiths.
"We had learned from our Christian friends in Jerusalem a bit more about the Holy Week than we had known … and we loved the idea of making Easter, and that Easter season, a bigger thing and more Christ-focused," Kerry Muhlestein said.
He said hundreds joined when he mentioned their annual walk on a podcast he runs, but it grew even more as church leaders began to emphasize celebrating the entire Easter season, and people began looking for ways to do that. In 2025, they had about 3,000 people join.
Julianne Muhlestein said, this year, she has had more people reaching out to ask her how to host their own walk, and that has been fun to see.
She said they patterned theirs after what the experience is like in Jerusalem.
"The Palm Sunday walk will be on pause this year in Jerusalem, or very small … it just feels like a tag team effort, in my own heart, to carry it forward," she said.
She said one of the only differences is that in Jerusalem, there are various pilgrimage groups that sing their own music. At the walk they host, she said they aim to have the whole crowd singing the same music by placing speakers with the same playlist throughout the crowd.
"I'm surprised how much feedback I get of the impact that this is having in variety of different ways on people's lives, and that brings us ... to feel like it's worth our time and effort to make this annual so that people can be a part of it," she said.
Kerry Muhlestein said his wife organizes it and people volunteer to bring sound systems, donkeys and signs. He said they didn't intend for it to grow as large as it has, but they are "thrilled to be part of something that brings people to Christ."
