This week I thought I'd blog pictures I took of our Temple. This the middle of the 3rd week we have been working in the Temple. It has already been an amazing experience which we are so grateful for. Here is my favorite Temple worker walking up to the front of the Temple.

Some of the Temple workers milling around the outside steps of the Temple. They are some of the best people I have ever met!

A close up of the Angel Moroni which is the statue on top of most of our Temples. For those of you who do not know, Mormon lived in the America's about 400 AD and was given the job of compiling all the histories of the people who lived in the America's from 600BC to his time. He did as he was told and then turned the records over to his son Moroni. Moroni was later told to bury the records, which were engraven on plates of gold, to come forth at a latter day. Mormon's son, Moroni showed Joseph Smith where they were buried. Joseph then translated them. That is where we got the Book of Mormon which is a record of the people who lived on this continent between 600 BC and 421 AD and is a further witness that Jesus is the Christ. The Lord commanded the prophets of that time and place to keep their records for the purpose of clearing up passages in the Bible that had been lost or changed over the decades by various groups of people when compiling and translating it. It was essential in the Lord's bringing the Gospel and Preisthood authority back to the earth in this, the last dispensation of time.

This is the window from the Celestial Room in the Temple. The Celestial Room represents when we will live with God again and every Temple has one. This one has stained glass that represents the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. It is not showing up here very well, but is beautiful. It is especially pretty on the outside at night when the chandelier is shining through it.

The Palmyra Temple has stained glass everywhere that represents the grove of trees (we have come to call it the Sacred Grove because of what took place there) where Joseph Smith first prayed to know which church to join.

This is the front door of the Temple and the trees here represent the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

The entrance you drive through to get to the parking lot.

From the parking lot. The front door is on the left.

This is the view of the Temple from the Joseph Smith Farm.

I climbed up on the hill to the East of the Temple to take this shot. We LOVE our days here and don't know how we will ever go back to regular life. Luckily, we have two years of this before we need to even think about leaving. I wish I could express in words how much we have been changed already by being here.


Now on to more secular things.... This is in the room above our apartment. It was a Masonic Temple and is very interesting. This mural is on the ceiling. I am not sure what it is but it is impressive.

This is also on the ceiling in the center of the room. Very cool. The room was at one time beautiful and still has wonderful woodwork and front windows. But they really had to want to be there, climbing all the stairs to get there! Now the little kids (ages 5,3 and 1) next door play in the room with their tricycles.

More churches.... When Joseph Smith lived here there was a real "Christian Revival" going on.
That was what finally prompted him to go into the woods and pray to find out which of the many feuding churches was right.

I think it is really interesting and a testimonial to Joseph's dilema, that on one main intersection in Palmyra there are 4 different churches (one on each corner) facing each other. I couldn't get a good picture of all of them at once - I needed a helicopter - and they are never around when you need one. So I took pictures of them individually.

They are beautiful buildings and each a part of history. A Methodist, Presbyterian, Epsicopal, and Lutheran with a Catholic and Baptist one just down the street.

Joseph said that they each taught different interpretations of the Bible and fought against each other for converts. This really bothered him and so when he was reading the Bible and came to James 1:5

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

In his own words:

"Never did a passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine...At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God... It was on the morning of a beautiful clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty...I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally."

He went to the woods and knelt down and started to pray having full faith the Lord would answer his prayer.

"I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me...When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other- This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! ... I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all sects was right (for at this time it never enter into my heart that all were wrong) - and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but that their hearts are far from me, they teach for the doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."

Again, we are so grateful to be here. We wish you all our love and appreciation for caring enough to follow our blog.