A little history for today!

So on Sunday Dee & I had to give talks in Sacrament meeting.. & I thought it would be cool to post it on here so anyone could read it! (: Enjoy? 

Before I tell you what my talk is on I want you to think to yourselves & guess what I am going to be talking about:

1. The prophet prophesied that no lives would be lost during the building of this temple.

2. This temple is the oldest operating temple in the church.

3. Most of the labor was performed by volunteers who were called to the task.

4.It has more sealing rooms than any other temple in the church.

5.This temple was the first temple where endowments for the dead were performed.

6.In the Temple the founding fathers of the united states appeared twice to President Wilford Woodruff in the temple asking why their temple work had not been performed.

*If you haven't guessed yet, my talk is on the St. George temple.

I would like to go into more detail about the history of the St. George Temple.

I mentioned that it is the oldest operating temple, in fact it was the only temple completed during President Brigham Young’s presidency. He passed away around 6 months after its dedication.

After spending the winter in St. George during 1870 Brigham Young knew that the people in St. George were restless, & needed something to unify & sustain them after the tabernacle was completed. Dixie was a difficult mission, & some people wanted to leave. The place was relatively isolated & would be free from government & gentile interference. Skills, Labor & materials were available. The people needed subsistence to see them through the pioneer period. The cotton factory in Washington was in trouble & the natural scourges of flood, famine, & Indian molestations were competing with the sun as excuses for some of the people to go elsewhere. President Young was getting old & he wanted to see a temple established in the west in his lifetime. After the church members sustained the decision to build the temple, President Young spoke in conference saying: “This is a desert country, but it is a splendid place to rear saints. I regret to hear of any wishing to leave.”

I don’t know about you but I have a hard time living in St. George in the summer time with air conditioning. I cannot imagine being called to move here & settle the area & on top of that have to build a temple.

In a letter written to Erastus Snow President Young described the temple as two stories high with a basement housing a baptismal font. The structure was to be 196 feet long 142 feet wide & 80 feet high. Built of stone & plastered inside & out. When Brigham Young selected the site of the temple, he declared that the city would later expand & surround the temple.

I also mentioned that President Young prophesied that no lives would be lost during the building of the temple. Although the project was completed without serious accident, John Burt fell 70 feet from the scaffolding & was not expected to live. He survived though & was back at the building within two weeks after.

The volcanic rock that was originally on the site was moved to where the old airport was. To remove the volcanic rock the workers used a cannon from the Mexican War as a pile driver. You can see this on display at the visitor’s center.

It took more than two years to complete the temple foundation. But it was a firm foundation & it has helped to keep the building soild & unharmed through nearly a century & a half even withstanding a major earthquake in 1992 of 5.7 magnitude on the Richter Scale.

This is what President George A. Smith said during the dedicatory prayer of the block chosen for the temple site:

“May Thy peace be upon the pioneers of this desert & upon all those who have labored to reclaim the same: may eternal blessings rest upon them & their prosterity forever. Yes, bless all thy servants who have done this great work, bless their wives, their children, their substance, & do thou bless them in all their labors.

“We thank thee, O God, for these barren hills, & for the shelter of these rugged rocks & deserts as peaceful dwelling places for thy saints. Bless this land that it may be sacred as an adobe of peace & safety & happy homes for the people. Bless this ground on which this temple is to be erected, that it may be held sacred for this purpose: yea, do grant that this temple ground may never be under the dominion or control of the wicked.”

One time a sealer in the temple told us something neat about the sealing room off the celestial room, that every prophet has been in there besides Joseph Smith.

It is true that the founding fathers appeared to President Wilford Woodruff , here is what President Woodruff had to say: I will here say... that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they,

"You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God."

Their work along with many other notable people from history was done in the St. George temple.

To close I wanted to bring up some questions we can all think about.

The first question is: Why are temples important?

*Temples are important because as President Monson declares in his April 2011 general conference address:

 "Until you have entered the house of the Lord and have received all the blessings which await you there, you have not obtained everything the Church has to offer. The all-important and crowning blessings of membership in the Church are those blessings which we receive in the temples of God."

Temples are important because from the days of the old testament the lord has commanded his people to build temples. You can read about it in Exodus chapters 26-27.

Also the lord commanded his people to build temples in the early 1800s. In D&C 88:119 it reads:

 119 ^aOrganize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a ^bhouse, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;

The Second question is: What do people do in the temple? & why is it important?

*In the temple we are taught, we make covenants, & we are promised blessings. It is important because we receive ordinances that will allow us to live in the presence of God.

The Last question is: Why is it important to do work for the dead?

*It is important because heavenly father wants all his children to return & live with him. He has asked us to do these ordinances for our ancestors who haven't received these ordinances in the temple so they can live with him again.

We are so lucky & blessed to live so close to a temple.. I feel like at some point we all have taken advantage of the fact that we live so close & end up not going because we know we can go whenever we want.. But people in other countries & even other states have to drive hours or even days to go to a temple, & yet they still make a big effort to go.

President Monson says in his April 2011 General conference talk:

 "Why are so many willing to give so much in order to receive the blessings of the temple? Those who understand the eternal blessings which come from the temple know that no sacrifice is too great, no price too heavy, no struggle too difficult in order to receive those blessings. There are never too many miles to travel, too many obstacles to overcome, or too much discomfort to endure. They understand that the saving ordinances received in the temple that permit us to someday return to our Heavenly Father in an eternal family relationship and to be endowed with blessings and power from on high are worth every sacrifice and every effort."

 Go to the temple, you will be blessed! & it will strengthen your marriage! (: