The Fourth Temple Visited: Manti Utah Temple

This past Saturday Tyler and I took a little road trip down to Manti to attend a temple session and go to the pageant there. It was a random thing we decided to do the day before. We ended up going to the 12:30 session Saturday afternoon and we were glad that we did. The temple is beautiful! I think a picture doesn’t really capture how beautiful the temple is there, but I am posting several that we took though hehe.

History:

The Manti Utah Temple is the third temple dedicated in Utah (the first being St George, then Logan). It was announced on June 25^th, 1875. The groundbreaking was on April 25^th, 1877 by Brigham Young. At the time of the ground breaking Brigham Young told Warren S Snow that the site had been where Moroni, a prophet of the Book of Mormon, had dedicated for a future temple. There was a private dedication on May 17^th, 1888 by Wilford Woodruff and a public one on May 21^st to 22^nd, 1888 by Lorenzo Snow (the only temple dedicated by him). It is interesting to note that it cost 1 million dollars to build the temple in the late 1800s, which is a lot of money now but just think of how much that was then. It was also completely built by people who volunteered their time to build it. I think this shows how great of sacrifice these early pioneers made to build this temple. They truly saw the importance of giving their all for the Lord and building up His Kingdom on the earth. The Manti Temple was also closed for four years in the 1980s for renovations. It was then rededicated on June 14-16^th, 1985 by Gordon B Hinckley.

Architecture/Décor:

The Manti Utah Temple is one of the castle style temples (the others being St George and Logan). Its architecture was influenced by Gothic Revival, French Renaissance Revival, French Second Empire and American Colonialism. The outside looks like a random castle from Europe places in a small secluded town in Utah. The insides are amazing. The murals in this temple are awesome! I loved the inside. The creation room and world room where beyond description. The creation room showed evolution of animals in the murals, and the world room showed the history of the world in the murals. Every room had new eye candy. I would highly recommend this place if you are temple worthy and want to see some amazing architecture.

Helpful things to know if visiting the temple:

Location:

The temple can be seen quite far away as you drive towards it. It is on Hwy 89 on the North side of town. It is built on a beautiful hill overlooking the town. If you are driving from the Salt Lake/Provo area, I would highly recommend driving to Nephi and then going down through the town of Moroni to go to Manti. It is the most direct route. Beware though there are a lot of speed traps (with many small towns to go through with reduced speed limits), and the road has many curves and deer (hence possibly dangerous at night).

Scheduling and Temple Clothes:

The temple is a large enough temple you don’t need to call ahead to schedule a time. A session is every hour on the half hour. During pageant times the last session is earlier at 3:30, to keep in mind if you want to go to a session and then go to the pageant. Rental temple clothes are also available here too.

If you wish to learn more about this temple check these places out (these were also the places where I got my information):

Manti Utah Temple. http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/manti/

Manti Temple sign at the Manti Utah Temple grounds.

Third Temple Visited: Jordan River Utah Temple

The third temple Tyler and I visited was the Jordan River Utah Temple. The other temple located in South Jordan. It is named after the close by Utah Jordan River. The Jordan River is named after the Jordan River; the river Christ was baptized in, due to its similar characteristic is linking a fresh water lake to a salt water lake (the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, and in Utah, Utah Lake to the Salt Lake). Tyler and I went here for our June temple visit on June 4^th, 2010. We had a nice session there and a good time over all (but then again every time you go to the temple you have a good time hehe).

History:

The Jordan River Utah Temple announcement to be built was on February 3^rd, 1978 in a news conference. The ground breaking was on June 9^th, 1979 by Pres. Spencer W. Kimball. In the groundbreaking ceremony Pres. Kimball didn’t use a regular shovel to move the first dirt but actually a caterpillar tractor to remove the dirt. The open house was from September 29^th to October 31^st, 1981. The dedication was on November 16- 20^th, 1981 by Marion G Romney, Pres. Spencer W. Kimball 2^nd counselor. It was the only temple Marion G Romney dedicated. It is also interesting to note that at the time people believed that President Kimball could not attend the dedication due to recovering from surgery but he happened to make it right before the ceremony started. Once dedicated it was the 20^th operating temple of the church and was the second temple built in the Salt Lake Valley (the first being the Salt Lake Temple).

Architecture/Decor:

The Jordan River Utah Temple is very similar to the Provo and Ogden temple in lay out and to some degree the outside too. Like the Provo and Ogden temples it has 6 ordinance rooms, which allows for a session to start every twenty minutes. The outside differs in that it has more of a pointy exterior than round exterior. Instead of a plain pole design for the spire like the Provo and Ogden temple it has more of a cone shape spire. It also has fascinating window designs, while the Provo and Ogden temple have plain windows. Another interesting fact is that the Angel Moroni on this temple is one out of five temples that has an Angel Moroni carrying golden plates.

Helpful things to know if visiting the temple:

Location:

You can get to the Jordan River Utah Temple by taking Redwood Rd and turning east on Temple Lane. This is a small road that drives by many senior living homes, and will end in the temple parking lot. This temple is especially great for senior citizens in that it has escalators instead of stairs and has a lot of handicapped parking (so if walking is hard for you, this is a great temple to go to).

Scheduling and Temple Clothes:

The Jordan River Utah Temple is a highly busy temple and is made for high capacity. You do not need to call in to go to this temple. There are plenty of sessions with one starting every 20 minutes with a lot of room in each session so no worriesJ. For those wanting to rent temple clothes, temple clothes are available for rental.

If you wish to learn more check out these sites. These are the sites I used to find the facts used in this post:

Jordan River Utah Temple. http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/jordanriver/

Jordan River (Utah)-wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_River_(Utah)

Jordan River Utah Temple pic. http://www.dlmark.net/images/tjordan1.jpg

Second Temple Visited: Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple

The second temple Tyler and I visited on our quest to visit all the temples in Utah was the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple. We went on May 14th, 2010 to the 4 o'clock endowment session. It had been a busy day at work and I was rushing to meet up Tyler on time for this session. Once I finally got there though it was nice, peaceful, and set a wonderful tone for the rest of the evening. In all we had a great time there :)

History:

It is named Oquirrh Mountain because it was built on the base of the Oquirrh Mountain range. This mountain range is on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley and while the Wasatch Mountains lay on the east side. You might be thinking Oquirrh is kind of a weird name, it is actually an Indiana name. The word means "wooden mountain" in the Goshute Indian language and in the Ute Indian translation it means "the shining mountains." At first the planned named was going to be the South Jordan Utah Temple, but was figured to be too confusing for people so it was changed to Oquirrh Mountain. This was believed to be too confusing due to the fact that the Jordan River Temple is also in South Jordan. In fact South Jordan is the only town in the world to have two temples. The temple was announced October 1st, 2005. The groundbreaking was on December 16th, 2006 and it was dedicated August 21st-23rd, 2009. One interesting fact about the open house of this temple is that Angel Moroni was actually hit by lightning during a lightning storm on July 13th, 2009. It blackened Moroni's face, arm, and trumpet. No worries it was replaced before the dedication. The dedication was interesting in that on August 23rd, church was cancelled statewide for the first time ever so members could attend the dedication.

Architecture/Decor :

As said above the temple is located on the base of the Oquirrh Mountains, so much of the decor of this temple is based off of the natural beauty of these mountains. Inside there are beautiful murals of the Oquirrh Moutains, and designs of the native plant life with in the architecture. One thing I really liked as well was the wonderful use of natural light throughout the temple. It gave it a bright outside feeling to this temple. The temple is also amazing to look at from I-15 or Bangerter highway because it is such a large beautiful building sitting on a mountain ledge looking over the Salt Lake Valley from the east.

Helpful things to know if you are visiting the Temple:

Location:

The Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple is located in South Jordan off of, the highly traveled highway, Bangerter. It is very easy to get to and is right off of Bangerter, no need to weave through complex subdivisions to get there. It is also a nice new area of town, with the starter home development of Day Break and on the other side of Bangerter is the District, a wonderful shopping park. It really is an ideal date night area: temple session followed by dinner and a movie (the District's movie theater you can reserve your actual seating spot when you buy tickets in advance. This is perfect for opening night).

Scheduling and Temple Clothes:

Unlike many other Utah Temples you can not rent temple clothes here and you need reservations. They do let some people in without reservations if the session isn't full (I know this because we forgot to call a head b/c we didn't know you needed to), but it is always nicer to the temple workers as well as less of a worry if you call a head.

If you want to learn more, read more at these great sites. These are the sites, I used for my facts and pic:

Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple:http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/oquirrhmountain/

Oquirrh Mountains-Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oquirrh_Mountains

Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple Wiki :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oquirrh_Mountain_Utah_Temple

First Temple Visited: Salt Lake Temple

Today is June 9th, 2010, and as of today Tyler and I have visited 3 of the thirteen temples together. I will try to make up the other two posts for those temples as soon as I can. The first temple we visited was the Salt Lake Temple on April 24th, 2010. We went to one of the last sessions that Saturday. It was a nice peaceful evening and just a nice night in Salt Lake. Now to Mormons and to non-Mormons alike, the Salt Lake Temple is probably the most iconic of the LDS temples. Maybe it is because it is one of the most famous landmarks of Salt Lake City (maybe even in Utah in general), maybe it is because people saw it over and over again during the 2002 Winter Olympics, or maybe it is just because it is an amazing architectural structure that took 40 years to build.

Architecture/ Decor:

The detail in the Salt Lake Temple is amazing, and from looking at it it is no wonder it took 40 years to build at a time with very little technology (at least compared to today), and with it starting to be built in the middle of an untamed desert. The design was based off of many other famous architectural landmarks in Europe, as well as a vision Brigham Young had as to what it should look like. Every feature in the temple has tons of little details. It is one place where you can sit in one room and be amazed for a long period of time by just looking at the decor. Then after doing so turn to your friend to say what you saw and realize that that same person who spent the same amount of time as you in that same room saw something else completely different. It just has that much detail! Even doorknobs have exquisite detail. It truly is a testament to the faith of the early Mormon pioneers who gave up all they had to move to the Salt Lake valley and then spend so long to build it. These people truly had faith! They didn't just say"hey, I have faith in Christ." They lived their faith in Christ in everything they did, giving up all for Him.

History:

So some of you might not be familiar with the amazing story of how the Salt Lake Temple came about. The Salt Lake Temple was announced to be built on July 28th, 1847. That was four days after the first company of saints had reached the valley. Brigham Young was the one who announced where this temple would be built. The ground breaking though didn't take place until Valentines day Feb 14th, 1853 with Brigham Young doing the first shoveling of dirt. This was six years after the original announcement. You might ask, why did it take so long to get started on it? Now I don't know the official reason but I would imagine it was because they moved to the middle of nowhere and had to do the whole survival thing. You know build homes, plant fields, recover from walking across America, etc. On April 6th, 1853 the cornerstones were laid. The basement and foundation where made out of sandstone with granite serving for the upper levels. By 1855 the foundation was complete. Then in 1858, they had to bury the site to hide it from approaching US army troops (who had been sent out on false reports of a Mormon uprising). Construction didn't resume until 7 years later, in 1865. When the foundation was uncovered they realized that there were cracks in the foundation, da da dah. I think if I was one of the Mormon pioneers I would have cried then, because it turned out the foundation had to be pulled out and redone (bad news bears). It was a blessing in disguise because if they had not found out that it was cracked/could crack due to the way it was built it could never have supported the granite top. Anyway they had to start all over.

One of the biggest problems was the transportation of the granite from Little Cottonwood Canyon. It took four days to transport just one stone by wagon ( only forty miles road trip). As the railroad companies planned to build a railroad into the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young stopped work on the temple construction to have the men work on the railroad. Through the railroad the stones were then able to be transported much faster to Temple Square (the site of the Salt Lake Temple). Once the railroad was in the men continued work on the actual construction and the work greatly progressed due to the technological wonder of the railroad. On April 6th, 1892, the capstone was laid and a 12 foot angel Moroni was placed on top. Then the pioneers had one year to complete the interior to finish the project. It was then dedicated April 6th, 1893 by Wilford Woodruff (fourth prophet in this dispensation). After forty years, 3 prophets time as the acting prophet (Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff), and 3 other temples having been started and finished before this one had been dedicated (St George, Logan, and Manti), the Salt Lake Temple was finished!

Helpful things to know if you are visiting the Temple:

Transportation:

There is parking around Temple Square but you have to pay to park. If you are up to walking you can go a bit farther away and you can park free on the street in a residential area. I personally recommend Trax it is a nice light rail and not too expensive. Five dollars for a day pass and only four dollars for a round trip pass. That way you don't have to mess with parking.

Scheduling and temple clothes:

You don't have to schedule an appointment to go. This is the largest temple in the world! It is also fairly busy but don't worry you don't feel squished. They also have temple clothes for rent if you don't have your own.

Other Random Info:

It is a live session so it will take a bit longer to go through an endowment session. This is a great temple to go to if you have a lot of time but if you are on a tight schedule with a babysitter waiting at home best to go to another temple. Temple workers there though are super great. They are used to people not knowing where they are going because many people visit this temple from around the world. They are super helpful and will approach you to help you if you look confused about where things are as opposed to you approaching them for help. All temple workers everywhere are nice and helpful, its a true fact :)

Hopefully you have found this helpful. There is so much to say about the Salt Lake temple. Below I put the sources I used to make this blog. I highly recommend reading them if you wish to learn more about this beautiful House of the Lord. I loved the session I went to there with Tyler. It was a great evening. I hope this post has inspired some of you to go visit this amazing temple, either to stroll the grounds (all temples have nice grounds, and the larger they are the larger their beautiful grounds are), or to do some ordinance work there.

The sources I used for my information was:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint:Salt Lake Temple. http://www.lds.org/temples/main/0,11204,1912-1-40-2,00.html

Salt Lake Temple History. http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/temples/salt_lake_temple_history.html

Mountain of the Lord. (Awesome Church Video on the history of the Salt Lake Temple)

Riding UTA. http://www.rideuta.com/ridingUTA/payingFare/fares.aspx (for Trax info)

Why the Challenge?

Hi my name is Stacy. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I love going to the church's temples. I also have a wonderful boyfriend, Tyler. We both happen to love going to the temple, and we both have a desire to visit all the temples in Utah to do a session (the world would be nice but we lack unlimited funds and unlimited time). So we invented this challenge and I figured while we have the goal to go to a different Utah temple about one per month for a year, I might as well give an account of these adventures. This way our family and friends can follow our adventure if they want, while learning more about these amazing temples.

I'm writing this for members and non-members of the church to view. For each post I will try to give a description of the location, some of the architectural/physical features of the temple, some history of the temple and a little about our adventure of getting there. I will not talk about the ordinances themselves because they are sacred, but I am going to give a bit of an overview now of why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (more commonly called Mormons or LDS) has temples and what those ordinances are.

Why does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have temples?

In short the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has temples so that the living and the dead can receive the necessary ordinances to return to the presences of God. While many other Christian faiths believe all that is needed is faith, the LDS Church firmly believes as James says in the Bible "faith without works is dead." Therefore we need faith in Christ while striving to live the commandments He gave and receiving the ordinances that are needed for salvation. Through faith in Christ our imperfections can be made perfect but we still need to be striving for perfection. Perfection is not just going to be given to us. In other words, Christ makes up the majority of the debt to be able to return to God, but we still need to do our best to try to pay that debt. As the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi said in 2 Nephi 25:23 "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do."

What are these temple ordinances?

There are numerous temple ordinances:

Baptism for the dead:

You might be asking yourself, what thats weird? if you aren't familiar with the LDS faith. The LDS church believes that everyone must be baptized in order to return to the presence of God. Millions of people have lived upon the earth and millions of people have died without knowing the true gospel of Jesus Christ. We are also all Spirit children of Heavenly Father. He loves us all. So why then does someone receive the gospel while they are living and others never have that opportunity in this life? If God loves us and is merciful surely he is also just. Through temple work those who did not have the opportunity to receive the gospel while living can receive those ordinances by proxy (so basically by a living person receiving those ordinances in the place of the dead person using the dead person's name). Now some of you might be thinking, wait my dead relatives are being baptized mormon? The Church doctrine believes that there is a place that spirits go before the resurrection and judgement called the Spirit World, where those who have not yet received the Gospel of Jesus Christ can have the opportunity to do so. The problem is that they don't have bodies to receive the ordinances that come with receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thats where the living come in, but don't worry the dead can accept or reject these ordinances.

Now while the living can be baptized outside of temples, all ordinances for the dead happen in the temple. So baptism for the dead is basically just that members who are worthy (worthy as in they follow the teachings of the church and have been interviewed by the leaders in their local area to receive a recommend can do these ordinances) and who are 12 and older who are baptized for the dead. There is also confirmation for the dead that these same people can do. Many people who are not members find that it might be wrong not to let everyone into the temple. The point is not to make people feel left out or to be exclusive, as a matter of fact the Church wants everyone to be able to go to the temple and receive these wonderful blessing, but you need to be worthy to enter if not you are not prepared for what is with in and you are casting eternal damnation on your soul. The greatest desire of God is that all may enter and live up to the covenants made there in so we may receive eternal life with God.

Endowment:

Now while baptism in the temple is only for the dead, the endowment is received for the living and the dead in the temple. Members generally receive their endowment prior to a mission, a temple marriage, or when they are older and their local church leaders feel they are ready. Then after one receives their own endowment they may go back and receive it for the deceased. Brigham Young, second prophet after the church had been restored, said this about the endowment, "Let me give you a definition in brief. Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels." This is what Tyler and I (both being return missionaries) are going to be doing at the temple for the dead for our challenge.

Sealing:

The sealing is the ordinances that makes it possible for families to live together forever. To let our family units, the most important social units in our lives, continue past the grave. People can either be married in the temple and all children there after being born to them will be able to live with them forever, or people who join the church later or are worthy later in life can be sealed with their already living children to be able to live together forever.

Of course all of these blessings depend on the continual keeping of these covenants.

Hopefully that was a good enough overview of the temple for those of you unfamiliar with the purposes of these temples.

I am rather excited about this challenge and this blog, its going to be great:)