I visited two temples on Saturday with the youth. Here are the young women in front of the Gilbert Temple construction site. The sister missionary at the construction site gave us a wonderful idea of how temples are built and showed us the plans for the temple and helped the young women visualize themselves going there someday. The land has been dedicated and there was a beautiful spirit there.
Construction workers at temples do not need to be members of the Church, but they must abide by Church standards when on site. They do not smoke, swear, argue, eat (even and especially sunflower seeds), or listen to music of any kind while on site. Temples are built without blemish. No markings are permitted on the construction materials. If a wall has been written on, it is removed (not painted over) and an unblemished piece replaces it. People in general are not allowed on site: only construction workers, members of the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency are allowed.
Grandma Ruth’s uncle Otto did marble work in the Oakland temple. Grandma Ruth has a lamp with a black marble base from leftover temple marble, and she also has some green marble from the temple. Otto was not a member of the Church. Years later, the Oakland temple was a place where my dad felt the Spirit as a young man before joining the Church. The Oakland temple is where my parents were married. I love how temples bring families together.
Here we are in front of the Mesa temple where the youth were baptized for the dead.
The image of these girls in the temple, dressed in white will stay with me forever.
We gathered at 6:30 am at our church to make it to the temple on time for our appointment. This was Daniel’s first temple trip. It was a good day and we were tired when it was all over.
Hooray for the youth! Hooray for temples!