Mormonopia» Mormon Temples

The temple recommend of a prophet, seer and revelator

Graham — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:00:31 +0000

I mentioned before that back in March, Elder M Russell Ballard came to do some training. He was physically at the stake centre beside the Toronto Ontario Temple, but the training was for all of Eastern Canada. Leading up to the meeting, we were told that there would be a special temple session that Elder Ballard would attend. We were to let the temple know if we could go so they knew how many people to expect.

I know the person who was checking the temple recommends that day, and he told me that Elder Ballard had a special recommend. It was NOT the same as ours. There was no barcode on it, no expiry date and all three members of the First Presidency sign it. Neat!

This of course brings to mind a few questions:

Did he have an interview when he first got it?
Does he have the same recommend since he first became an apostle?
Do they get new ones if something on the recommend changes, like a change to the First Presidency, or even the new Church logo from a while ago?

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Toronto Ontario Temple at night

Graham — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:59:43 +0000

We have a Ward Temple Night on the 3rd Thursday of each month. We are in the Toronto Ontario Temple district. In November, this was last Thursday. It was rainy and kind of foggy/misty, and this is what we saw (taken with my cell phone camera) as we approached the temple.

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Sealing work at the temple

Graham — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:26:01 +0000

Last night was our monthly ward temple night. Instead of going through an endowment session, we had arranged for a couple of sealers to be available, and 16 of us did sealings. I’ve attended several sealings, and have done work once before for the deceased, but I had never done sealings for an hour and a half. It’s tough work!

The sealer that was with our group (we divided into two sealing rooms) spoke almost non-stop for the entire time, and only coughed or cleared his throat once. I told him I was impressed, and he just laughed. I had forgotten that the entire ceremony (including the pronouncement of blessings) is repeated, not just the basic initial part. This makes the sealing of spouses kind of long. The sealing of a child to their parents is relatively quick, but even that is about 4x as long as the baptism prayer (I went over it in my head as the sealer was speaking).

As my wife and I finished up the sealings we were doing, the sealer said we could kiss each other. Apparently I made a funny face. It just caught me off guard. It’s not that I don’t like kissing my wife, but I didn’t know we were done, and in my head I was trying to figure out what a kiss had to do with anything, and I didn’t know if he was joking or not. Thankfully my wife has already forgiven me for the look

Overall, the 16 of us did about 400 sealings. It was a nice evening.

Toronto Ontario Temple at night We have a Ward Temple Night on the 3rd Thursday...
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173rd anniversary of dedication of Kirtland Temple

Graham — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:55:01 +0000

I am located near the Ontario/New York border, and am 2 hours away from Palmyra and 4 hours away from Kirtland. Since we are so close, I’ve been to both places many times. I love visiting them. The Church does an incredible job in restoring the sites, and making them quality destinations. I’ve always been a fan of Church history (the “wacky” stuff doesn’t bother me at all), and there is something special about visiting these early Church locations. The early saints had such faith in Brother Joseph. They walked with him and talked with him. He must have been quite the charismatic leader.

Today (March 27) marks the anniversary of the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. The Kirtland Temple itself is a great example of what they would do for their leader. An announcement of a temple today is almost boring. It seems like every General Conference has a couple of them announced. But back then, hearing that they were going to build a temple must have been exciting and terrifying at the same time. They built it at great cost, and were only able to enjoy it for a brief period of time. One of my favourite things is going to the quarry up the street. You can see marks in the rocks where previous people were working. These are NOT marks from the early saints, but it gives you an idea of what they had to do to get the stone out. You can imagine Brother Joseph working shoulder to shoulder with the others to make the vision become a reality.

The prayer offered at the dedication of the temple is contained in D&C 109. The prayer is beautiful, but I particularly appreciate verse 22:

And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them;

I do enjoy my time at the temple, and do feel more “powerful” after attending. Those words seem applicable to all temples.

You can see some pictures of one of trips to Historic Kirtland (taken several years ago) here and here, pictures of the Kirtland Temple here, pictures of the Newel K. Whitney store here, and the John Johnson farm here.

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My co-worker’s response to Big Love

Graham — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:32:47 +0000

I commented before that I had some co-workers who watch Big Love and I was curious to see if they would ask me about it. Well, I just had a nice conversation with one woman. We’ve talked about religion before. There have been a few members who have worked with her in the past, and she knows that I’m currently the bishop of my ward. She asked if I’d seen Big Love and I said that I had, and so she asked if the temple scene was true. I explained that it was basically true, but that it missed the point of the ceremony, which is to learn about the Plan of Salvation from the beginning to the end. She asked if the “muscle thing” was true, and when I gave her a confused look, she clarified that she was talking about what was said at the veil. I said that most of what was in the episode was accurate. She asked about what the blue apron. I told her it was actually green, and that it represented the “fig leaves” they used to cover themselves. She accepted that without hesitation. She also wanted to confirm that is what we do in the temple in Toronto (I’ve referred to that before), and I told her it was.

Without me trying to justify anything, she said that at first it seemed weird, but then she figured that all other churches have rituals, and it was no different than that, so she thought it was fine. She said she wanted to see the white room at the end. We laughed and I explained a few things she might have to change in her life in order to do that, and she said she was fine with most things other than the gambling (we work in Niagara Falls, and she likes to frequent the casinos). She said she’d let me know when she was ready.

We spoke about the “love court”, and I told her I’d never heard that phrase before. I explained that I’ve had to run a couple of those sorts of things, and that I didn’t think it was portrayed well. That made her think of when the woman was questioned about her garments, and wanted to know what that was. I wear crew neck garment tops, so I pointed to the white “undershirt” I have on, and told her it wasn’t magic underwear, but that I wear them every day. That was good enough for her. She didn’t ask any more about why, or what they represented. She did say she was going to check every day to make sure I had them on!

We talked for a little longer, and I explained a bit about Joseph Smith, and mentioned how he must have been influenced by what he learned as a Mason. I explained that the method was similar, but that what is taught is different. She thought that was very interesting, as her grandfather was a mason and it always fascinated her.

So, based on this one conversation, the episode did not hurt her impression of the Church, and it helped her learn some more about the Church.

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My (simple) thoughts on the Big Love episode

Graham — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:48:38 +0000

I have to be honest, when I first heard that Big Love was going to show parts of the temple endowment ceremony, I didn’t get very upset. It was going to happen sooner or later in some main stream movie or TV show. As others have commented, the information is all out there anyway. Out of all of the people close to me who found out about it, my mother-in-law was particularly upset about it. I received a couple of email forwards from various church leaders who wanted to ensure that the show wasn’t mentioned in sacrament meeting, and suggesting that if people have questions, they could watch the MormonMessages clip on YouTube.

Anyway, I did see the relevant parts today, and it just seemed so bizarre to hear those words spoken so freely when we as members never speak them other than in the temple. Generally, what they showed seemed pretty accurate. However, of course the problem is that only showing a few minutes doesn’t really help anyone understand the purpose of the temple. I know that the physical actions have a place in the ceremony, but I’ve always been fond of the presentation as a whole as you progress from the creation to the eternities.

There are a few people at work who watch the show. I have to say, that in trying to watch the show for entertainment, it was just too much of a soap opera for me. It definitely isn’t my type of show. It will be interesting to see if my co-workers approach me with any questions.

On a related (but side) note, the MormonMessages clip is from the longer movie Between Heaven and Earth. I saw it a few years ago, and at the time I thought it was excellent and very well done. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

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Baptisms for the Dead

Graham — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:00:01 +0000

I know there has been some discussion on various Mormon blogs recently about baptisms for the dead, and how other church’s perceive the practice. I’m not interested in debating that right now, but I figured I’d just share a little about our most recent trip.

My ward is about 120km away from the Toronto Ontario Temple. We try to take the youth there 4 times a year. Last Thursday night was our first trip of 2009. Overall we had 43 people from the ward there that night (I think we had at least two other people there earlier in the day).

16 youth (12 YM, 4 YW)
1 YSA
8 men on “team” (2 bishopric, 2 YM leaders, 1 EQ presidency, 1 ward clerk, 1 WML, 1 seminary teacher)
3 YW leaders
5 members of the ward serving/working
10 other ward members doing some form of temple work

All of the baptisms that were done were family file. The couple “running” the baptistry that night said it was the first time during their time of service (I’m not sure how long that has been) that every baptism was family file. Apparently there were over 250 baptisms and confirmations done.

After going to the temple, the tradition used to be that we’d all end up going to some fast food joint (usually McDonald’s) and get something to eat. A couple of years ago one of my counselors suggested that we use the cafeteria at the temple and bring our own “treats”, so that we can stay together and still feel the spirit of the temple. It has worked out great. It obviously is less expensive than having 20 extra value meals purchased by the members. The ward foots the bill for the food now which is always less than $50 for all of us. The treats are healthier. We usually get away earlier than we would if we had to pack up, drive to a restaurant, and pack up and leave again. But like I said, the best part is we are still in the temple.

The youth love going to the temple. It’s great to see. Hopefully we keep having positive experiences with them so they are strengthened, and have that desire to return often.

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“Christ welcoming us through the veil of death”

Graham — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:17:25 +0000

By Common Consent has a neat post about a new cemetery in Austria that will have a section exclusively for Mormons. Apparently there will be a statue in the centre that shows Christ bringing someone through the veil. Although this is obviously temple-related, there doesn’t seem to be anything temple-specific shown on the statue. I think it’s neat. It reminds of some of the pictures I’ve seen of old headstones in cemeteries in Utah where you see a lot of symbolism of the temple (I couldn’t find the pictures when I did a quick search… if you know of any sites that show these, please link to it). These days our headstones are pretty basic (maybe even dull). I wonder why that has changed over the years.

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