Celestial Room in the Gila Valley Arizona Temple
The open house has been announced for the Gila Valley Arizona Temple, which was announced in General Conference just two years ago. The open house will start on Friday, April 23rd, and run through Saturday, May 15th. The dedication will take place on Sunday, May 23rd, 2010. [Read more…]
Celestial Room in Vancouver British Columbia Temple
Today the Church announced the public open house of the Vancouver British Columbia Temple, which will be the 131st temple of the Church. It is beautiful.
If you are in the area, you might want to see if you can visit. The tours run from April 9th through the 24th. The Church has produced an invitation that you can give to friends or family. The dedication will be held on May 2, 2010.
As always, the temple has been constructed of only the finest materials:
The temple’s exterior is covered with Branco Siena granite from Brazil…
The interior features beautifully grained hardwood from the west coast of Africa. British Columbia’s provincial flower, the Pacific dogwood, is used as a motif in the decorative painting and intricate carpet sculpting. Artwork depicting the native beauty of British Columbia graces the walls of the temple.
Here is a short video about the temple by the Church as well.
LDS Humanitarian Services
I received a comment this evening from YouTube user JAMaddict, which stands for Jim and Pam Addict, on my video Inside the LDS (Mormon) Twin Falls Temple. This is what they said:
It makes me physically ill to think about the “hand selected” granite flooring. What a waste, when so many millions of people need various types of aid.
Before you start going on and on about LDS’s humanitarian efforts, don’t bother! Since LDS refuses to release their financial records, no one knows for sure, but the best guess is that they give 2% of their total income to aid. That’s sickening. ((I’ve removed the moderated comment from the video page.))
This was my reply message back to them:
The LDS Church has given over $1.1158 billion dollars in humanitarian aid in 167 countries worldwide since 1985. You can see the breakdown per year here:
http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,4606-1-2329-1,00.htmlIf you want to get more specific, you can see the 2008 Welfare Services Fact Sheet here:
http://www.providentliving.org/welfare/pdf/WelfareFactSheet.pdf$282.2 million in cash donations
$833.6 million in material assistanceThat includes:
- 61,308 tons of Food
- 12,829 tons of Medical supplies
- 84,681 tons of Clothing
- 5,965 tons of Educational supplies
- 8.6 million of Hygiene, newborn, and school kits
- 1,100,059 days of labor donated to welfare facilities
What is sick about that? ((Direct message to JAMaddict YouTube user, also known as Jim and Pam Addict.))
I might have also mentioned that anciently only the very finest materials were used to construct the House of the Lord, including gold, silver, iron, copper, timber, and stone (see this description of Solomon’s temple), and the Lord has revealed that they are to be built to the same standards today. It is God’s House, not ours, and He will have it built the way He reveals to His prophets.
If we had spent the humanitarian aid money we have since 1985 instead on temple construction, we could easily have over 100-200+ more temples throughout the world than we have now, essentially doubling the number we have taken 179 years to build, and providing the blessings of temple worship to many more of our members ((Estimate based on Suva Fiji Temple cost, approx. $5 million U.S. dollars (http://www.fletcherconstruction.co.nz/project.php?project_id=66&archived=yes), and Brisbane Australian Temple cost, $11.5 million (http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=4d3619f1707cd010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=7cecc8fe9c88d010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD ) )). But our goal is not to just build temples, but to do what the Lord has commanded, “to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all” ((The Prophet Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons, 15 Mar. 1842, page 732)).
William Weeks Nauvoo Temple architectural plan. (Click for larger view)
It is my honor and pleasure to introduce a new guest blogger to TempleStudy.com, Matthew B. Brown. Many of you may already be familiar with the great work of this historian, scholar, and author. If you are not, I heartily recommend his work to you. One of my favorite books on the temple is by Br. Brown, The Gate of Heaven: Insights on the Doctrines and Symbols of the Temple. A big thanks to Br. Brown for sharing his insights with us here on TempleStudy.com. -Bryce
Guest Blogger: Matthew B. Brown holds a degree in history from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is the author of ten books and has published articles with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU (aka FARMS). Matthew serves as a volunteer researcher, editor, and respondent for The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) and has spoken at several of their annual conferences. He has also been featured on TV and radio programs as well as at a number of seminars and symposiums.
On 19 January 1841 the Lord issued an important revelation through the Prophet Joseph Smith which is now known as Doctrine and Covenants section 124.1 There are many verses within this revelation where the Lord describes concepts associated with the Nauvoo temple. These concepts can be placed under five general categories so that they can be more easily evaluated: The Lord’s People, The Lord’s Commands, The Lord’s House, The Priesthood, and The Ordinances. This article is calculated to help students of the past more accurately understand what (and how much) the Lord revealed about the temple in Nauvoo, Illinois by the first month of the year in 1841. It is also designed to show intriguing connections between the Mormons who lived in the first half of the nineteenth century and what took place among the covenant people of the biblical period. [Read more…]
Have you ever wondered what goes into the design of new temples? How much is planned ahead of time? To what extent do they know what the temple will look like when it is finished? What level of detail is thought about even before construction begins?
I have thought those things many times before, and I believe they have now been answered in large measure by something fascinating that Elder Bednar shared in his CES fireside address just a couple weeks ago on May 3, 2009. His talk was entitled, “Things as They Really Are,” and he spoke about how the virtualization of reality through modern technology can take particularly pernicious forms that can have damaging eternal spiritual effects. It is an excellent talk, and one that every member of the Church should read and study carefully.
He also spoke of the good that can come through these technologies. One of the positive influences of our modern advances in virtual reality was shown in architecture, engineering, and design planning. Elder Bednar showed two sets of images of how computer graphics technology is used in the design of temples, and they are incredible:
Left: Computer rendering of sealing room in the Newport Beach California Temple. Right: Photo of actual sealing room in the Newport Beach California Temple. (click for a larger view)
As you can see, an extremely detailed plan of the Newport Beach California Temple was conceived before construction even started, even down to the fabrics, textures, colors, lights, windows, and furniture. Here is another:
Left: Computer rendering of lobby in the Copenhagen Denmark Temple. Right: Photo of actual lobby in the Copenhagen Denmark Temple. (click for a larger view)
Again, the attention to detail is astounding in the lobby rendering of the Copenhagen Denmark Temple before it was constructed. Needless to say, the Church knows a great deal about what a temple will look like before the dirt is stirred. Coming from a computer graphics background, I am greatly impressed.
The Church spares no expense in doing things right, particularly where the Lord’s temples are concerned. As in ancient times, the House of the Lord is only built with the finest of materials, craft, and skill available, and the most painstaking efforts are made beforehand to ensure that the Lord’s most holy house ends up being what it should be—the most sacred place on earth.