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Correction! @ 2:19:31 I accidentally say “trillion” instead of “billion”
Links:
Embrace the Future with Faith, Elder Russell M. Nelson, October 2020
Temple renovation video – How the Temple Will Survive Earthquakes
How Firm Our Foundation, Elder Russell M. Nelson, April 2002
Salt Lake Temple Square Begins Four-Year Renovation (cedar tree)
132 Problems Episode 37: Zion vs. Polygamy
Transcript:
[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy, where we explore the scriptural theological and historical case for plural marriage. My name is Michelle Stone and this is part three of my series on Temples. I was planning to do endowments right now. I know people have been waiting and waiting for that, but it felt better to switch them around for a variety of reasons. So today, I am continuing on with the Salt Lake Temple focusing mostly on Angel Maroni and the renovations. I think there is a lot of very important information here. So I hope that you will stay tuned and stay tuned till the end because as always, I have a terrible habit of burying the lead and I hope that you will find this information relevant, applicable and useful for your life. I want to as always, thank those who contribute to this podcast. I appreciate it so much. I would appreciate any more donations that people feel that they could um contribute. That is always a huge help. And I want to thank you for being here as we take this deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon Polygamy and the history of the temples.
[01:20] President Nelson: When the Holy Ghost is with you, you can teach truth even when it runs counter to prevailing opinions and you can ponder sincere questions about the gospel in an environment of revelation.
[01:36] Michelle: As I was gathering sources for this episode, I came across this clip and I love this council so much that I had to share it and start with it. This is from President Nelson’s October 22 conference address entitled Embrace The Future with Faith, which I will refer to later again, again, later again in this episode, I loved this clip. I, I honestly, it, it felt inspired and prophetic and true. When the Holy Ghost is with you, you can teach truth even when it runs counter to prevailing opinions and you can ponder sincere questions about the gospel in an environment of revelation. That is exactly what I am striving to do in this podcast. Seek and teach truth even if it doesn’t align with current narratives. Let me play just a little bit more.
[02:24] President Nelson: I invite you my dear sisters to create a home that is a place of security and I renew my invitation for you to increase your understanding of priesthood power and of temple covenants and blessings
[02:38] Michelle: that in particular is exactly what I am striving to do in this temple series. And what I believe all of us on this journey are trying to do. So I love being able to find a prophetic counsel that resonates with me and that I can fully embrace. And I want to thank President Nelson for that. I um at the beginning of this next part on Temples, I want to again talk to people who may be nervous about this Temple series. I recently spoke to a good friend and I’ve had some other conversations that are people just feeling like, um they don’t, they don’t know if they wanna listen to these episodes because they’re worried that it might ruin something for them. The sacred experiences that they’ve had in the temple, they don’t want to have to um throw things out or question things or uh open up things that don’t need to be opened. And I have to say I am so sensitive to that. I completely, I feel like I really understand and I um I was going to put this in my endowment episode or maybe I’ve already hinted to it, but I’ll share it once again here. A couple of thoughts that um when I started to learn what I started to learn about the temple, which I had intended to just be one series. I mean, one episode which has now grown into a series of four episodes. And this is still coming in the last episode that I will do. But I just felt this like incredible burden of how can I share this? How can I talk about this? I don’t want to like poke at you know, more of our sacred cows and really the temple in a lot of ways, is kind of our sacred cow. And I don’t want to hurt anybody’s faith. I, I just, or I don’t want to bring up these difficult questions for people and I certainly don’t want to put myself in any, you know, on any less staple footing with the church. And I, you know, so many issues that just weighed heavily on me. And I felt like, um if I’ve already shared this, I apologize, but I felt this just a heavy burden of, ok, so am I an enabler or am I not? I just feel so committed to the truth that if there were fewer enablers, there would be less abuse in this world. And I kind of, I just have refused to be an enabler. So and, and, and an enabler to me means someone who doesn’t tell the truth, you know, they just go along to get along because they don’t want to rock the boat and even if that might do some damage and I, oh, I just don’t wanna do that. But at the same time, I felt like, but if I talk about it, what’s gonna happen? So I felt like I had this terrible choice of being Jonah and running away, you know, or being like a Bennet I, and coming into the city and maybe being burned at the stake after hurting a lot of people who I care about. So that was my experience and it was really quite a bit of torment for me for quite a little while. And um and then the Lord just beautifully came through so profoundly with this answer that I want to share here. The answer was all downloaded in just you know, a split second as it happens with so much information that I’m going to do my best to put into words. But it was God honors his temples. God honors his temples. And just this complete understanding that yes, maybe our modern temple and from what I have seen and what I will get into in the next series was to some extent, we’ll talk about that next episode established by Brigham Young who um you know, I have some challenges with. But the understanding I was given was that the first temple was built by Solomon, a fallen polygamous leader, right? I’ve shared this. I know and yet miraculous, incredible things happened in that temple and God honored that temple. The next temple was built by Herod. It wasn’t even a fallen leader. He was just a terrible dictator from what I understand. And he built the second temple and yet miraculous things happened in that temple, Simeon and Anna, a prophet and a prophetess who served constantly in the temple, recognized the new the baby Jesus in that temple. Zacharias had the miraculous answer that he would have a son in that temple Jesus when he grew, expected the people to honor what he himself called his father’s house, he overturned the tables. He expected people to honor the temple, right. And so even if our temple has maybe similar issues of what those previous temples have had, which I think would be in keeping with a pattern. Why would it not? I believe I feel so firmly that God honors the temples. God honors the faith and sacrifice of a temple building and temple attending people even when we don’t understand everything exactly as it is because who in this life has ever understood everything exactly as it is, right? It’s just a matter of which direction we’re going and how we are exerting our faith and people who built temples sacrificed because of faith and people who attend temples sacrifice because of faith. And I just know like just God gave me that message so strongly that the experiences that I and so many others have had in temples are not invalid. They’re not invalidated by learning more, right? Because God speaks to us in the language we can understand and God honors faith. And um so I just want to say that when I, when I do say honestly that I’m just providing information and it’s up to everybody with God to determine what that information means for them and what God wants them to do with that information. I am by no means telling people what they should do I, as I acknowledged in the first episode, my understanding, my relationship with Temples has adjusted a lot over the last, I don’t know, 1015 years and it’s continuing to adjust. But I personally have not felt led to make some definitive declaration of uh you know, you know, that I’m not participating or that III I do not think that it’s a foregone conclusion that any of this information has to destroy any bit of love and connection to the temples. It may change how we relate to them and how we look to them, which I think might be a positive thing. So anyway, II, I want to just say I am sensitive to people who are still on this journey and who are navigating this difficult space. I hope that people who have left the church who feel, you know, I, I think I’m sensitive to both sides. I hope that people in that position will be extremely empathetic to people who are not in that position. And I do hope that people in every direction that all of us can have the humility to recognize that our way isn’t necessarily the way the right way. I do like I just had people again um online this week, you know, like telling me I need to leave the church. It, it happens quite regularly and I’m so surprised by that because I have not felt at all led to leave the church. Exactly the opposite is true. And while that has been challenging at times, I love the church, I just went to church today. I’m recording this on a Sunday and I loved being there and I loved the um connection. I feel the opportunity I get to hear um lessons, talks to sometimes grapple with them, sometimes work on charity. Try to strengthen my connections with my fellow man. And with God, the church is a beautiful vehicle for me to do that. And I can feel the spirit there and I can feel love and connection and I can receive truth. It is not for me, it would not be a net gain to leave the church quite the opposite. And, and I um I guess part of what I’m doing is II, I don’t, again, I’m sorry, I’m taking a longer introduction than I meant to. I don’t ever wanna tell anybody what to do because that is between individuals and God. But I think that having always the openness to any answer is a, is, is an important part of our progression and our humility. And you know, there may be some that listen, that could be called back to church. I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s better for the world if everyone leaves the church and I don’t think it’s better for people that leave maybe for so there are cases. Absolutely. Again, I need to be so careful here. So people need to do what they feel called to do but always stay open because those answers can change as we grow and progress and as we’re needed in different places. So anyway, I just wanted to again recognize the challenges of talking about these issues. I hope that people will um seek guidance and discernment to know when and if they should listen to these episodes, if they are concerned about them, I don’t, I don’t want anyone to feel threatened and I also don’t want anyone to shut it down because they’re scared of something I might say, you know, I, I would, I think that getting information is important, opening the discussion again. As always, I don’t claim to have all of the answers. I want to share with you a lot of the information that I have researched and found and some of the thinking I’ve done about it and the scriptures that I think are applicable. That’s my only desire and I hope that people will engage in the conversation so we can all grow and learn together. That is my goal here. So all of the caveats out on the table. Um I first, the first topic I want to talk about is a little bit lighter than um some of the later things that I have been, I’ve just been profoundly um impacted by the things I have learned and the things I found and the scriptures I’ve been led to. So I hope that people will listen to this entire episode. So first of all, many of you like me grew up toting this book of Mormon to church, right? It um it this angel moon has been the symbol of our church for my entire life. And so I want to start out talking about the angel moon. That’s part of why I um put this episode here because it talks about the Salt Lake Temple still because I had included this Angel Maroni section at the end of my Salt Lake Temple section. But it just was too much. So I decided to make it its own episode with some of the other things that I found that I think are applicable. So although the, the Salt Lake Temple was the fourth temple completed, it was the first temple to have an angel Moona. It’s so interesting because as our narrative has shifted over time with different leadership styles and different um things that they were trying to accomplish, you know, our awareness. Like I think I always thought that an angel moroai was just a necessary part of a temple. I grew up in the eighties and nineties and, and Angel Moroai and temples went together. I had no idea because I grew up in Salt Lake. I didn’t learn until much later that we had the Saint George temple and the Manti Temple and the Logan Temple that didn’t have angel Moon on them. Like, what’s that about? How weird are they broken? You know, I just assumed that that’s how it had to be. So, um, anyway, that’s why I want to talk about it because I find it so fascinating how history gets handed down and how we, I sort of kind of cling on to a historical practice from a certain period of time and assume there’s something eternally right about that and that it’s always correct and that, like, it reminds me of the Amish, right? Somehow, that what was it? A 16 hundreds practice and style of dress and technology in Germany all of a sudden became like this is the way and you have to do it this way. So interesting because the people before didn’t do it that way. But right. So it’s kind of like how we can get trapped in one in one certain timeline. And that seems to be a little bit what happened with the angel Moone. So I’m gonna share all this information because I find it to be fascinating, interesting and kind of fun. I hope that you will enjoy this part. Then we’ll get into some more heavy topics. The Angel Moone will lead us into more, some more serious topics. So in the 18 hundreds, we’re first gonna talk about the angel B night on the Navoo temple. Yeah, listen to what I said that was all incorrect. We’ll get there. So in the 1818 hundreds, a weather vane angel which was usually considered to be Gabriel blowing a trumpet based on the descriptions of the temples in the Book of Revelation. It was a very common building topper, especially on churches. So according to one church historian, that’s just what you did. I wanna show you a few examples from the time period. These are different angel building toppers and you could see how s how much this was just part of the style. Those were um antiques now, right? Those are original building toppers from that time period. And so the Nava Temple Angel Weather vane actually fell perfectly in line with this trend. This shown here is William Weeks design. And um it’s interesting because Joseph taught in a sermon in 1839 that it and he said an angel of God never has wings. So the n temple angel followed that teaching and didn’t have wings which continued with all of our angel temple topers. And so anyway, this is a really interesting story about our first angel topper angel Temple temple topper. That’s a bit of a tongue twister if I wanted to say so. Anyway, um I read that this, that the Navoo angel actually was um sold to the Salem evangelical church in Cincinnati where it stood atop their, their chapel for over 100 years until it was blown down in a windstorm. So that was a really interesting article to read and I’ll share it below. But yep, it’s really fun to see the original Navoo Angel Temple Temple topper design. So in Salt Lake, it was Truman angel who designed the Salt Lake Temple. And in his initial 1853 drawing for the Salt Lake Temple, you can see a similar angel weather vein. Um If you zoom in on it, you can see it more clearly and it appears that it might be wearing temple clothing, which I found really interesting. I, I can’t be sure, but that’s kind of what it looks like to me. And so you could see it blowing the trumpet carrying a book and it was just in keeping with the navoo angel um temple topper, which was just the the theme of the day, right? The season of the day. So ensuing in during ensuing decades, trends changed to upright angles, angels. So you remember Truman angel expected this temple to be built relatively quickly within his lifetime, you know, but um it wasn’t and so as the decades went on, they um they didn’t, weren’t using horizontal flying angels anymore at that time. So I wanna show you again just another trend here. You can see the trend of angels as temple toppers, some of them blowing trumpets, some of them, not most of them with wings because that’s how um angels are envisioned other than Joseph Smith’s teaching. So you can see that this was really a common trend not at all unique to Mormonism or to our temples. And um other than we don’t have wings and the trend continues. These last ones are a little bit more recent. So by the time Cyrus Dallin who is the sculptor who um created the angel Moon Night, by the time he accepted the commission to sculpt, this the Salt Lake Temple angel, he thankfully went with the newer style. I really like the standing angels better than the flying floating angels. I think it was an improvement. So his life is actually a fantastic story. I loved learning about it. I won’t go into it now for the sake of time. But um I’ll just give some quick cliffs notes, but you can search out Cyrus Dallin and it’s worth, it’s worth learning about him. I just loved that. So his parents actually met crossing the plains in 1851 and then they married, I believe eight years later in 1859 and settled in Springville where Cyrus was born and raised. Cyrus was actually named for the missionary who converted his father. The missionary was Cyrus Wheelock. So that’s why he was named Cyrus Stalin. But his father was excommunicated when Cyrus was still young. Apparently from the best information I can find it was for supporting non Mormon political candidates. So it was a different world in early Utah, right? So he was excommunicated. So Cyrus was never baptized and never identified as a member of the church. Nevertheless, he was just a born, a born sculptor, naturally talented from his earliest days, he would be sculpting with clay and mud. And his um the neighborhood recognized his talent and I think it was maybe his father’s employer that, that started it up and recognized his talent collected and donated to fund him being sent to Boston for training as a sculptor. I just love that. See, it’s the stuff that just makes, I love the good stories. I, that is a beautiful story. I love it. It reminds me of Alexander Hamilton being sent. I wasn’t from Jamaica and they, they were like, you’re too brilliant to be here. They took a collection and sent him to America and that’s similar to what happened to Cyrus Stallon. I really love that story. So anyway, he went on and trained in, um I think mainly in Massachusetts. He also went to Paris and continued his training and he has just, he was amazingly talented, so many gorgeous statues that he created mostly in Massachusetts. So I’ll just show a couple of them. There are many more, but I love this appeal to the great spirit at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. I think it’s just beautiful and his best known work and sort of the trial of his life is Paul Revere at the old North church in Boston. He had to do many different versions of this statue and they’re all just remarkable. I love that. He also returned to Springville where he set up his studio and school and established the Springville Museum of Art, which is still there today. And he also sculpted many um he asked many sculptures in Utah, including the Brigham Young Monument, which is an interesting one which stands um near Temple square. And so he was the sculptor who Wilford Woodruff asked to design the angel for the temple. You remember it was Wilford Woodruff who finally got the temple finished. So he had to find a way to do the angel on top of it. Um Cyrus actually initially refused the commission because he was not a member of the church and he didn’t believe in angels. So he didn’t feel like he would be able to accurately depict one, at least that’s what he said. And so, um President Woodruff really persisted and asked him to talk to his mother. And I love this story, Jane, his mother, who had also been a member of the church. She told her son Cyrus every time you return home and take me in your arms. Oh, sorry. I don’t know why it’s making me cry. I just love stories of good mothers. Um You, you, every time you take me in your arms, you call me your angel mother. So she convinced him that he did believe in angels because he believed in his mother and she was an angel. So she encouraged him to seek inspiration from the scriptures. And he claimed that his inspiration for the angel he sculpted came mainly from Revelation 14 verses six through seven which says, and I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of judgment is come and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of water. So though that was his inspiration and he created that beautiful um sculpture that we have. He assumed just like everyone else that he was as that he was sculpting the angel Gabriel, which is what he called the angel on his drawings until it was finished. And a group of apostles came to see it and one of them said we should call him moon and the names. And so that is when the angel that always had been Gabriel became moroai and it was an apostles idea. And so the only reason that we in the church associate moron with a trumpet is because of the angel on our temple. There’s no reference anywhere in the book of Mormon, at least that I have found to angel moon. I having anything to do with a trumpet. And so it’s, it’s, and again, it’s interesting how our history gets passed down, right? But before any Christians, because there are um other Christians, there are people from other Christian churches. I consider myself to be a Christian very much um before any of them get too gloy because they could be pretty hard on Mormons. I want to also point out that I can’t find anything in the Bible that in any way associate Gabriel with the trumpet either. So if anyone wants to let me know where that comes from, that would be great. But um I can see why Moon I is now associated with t with the trumpet because it came from our temple statue. But I couldn’t even find out why Gabriel came to be associated with a trumpet. But he absolutely did as we can see in so many elements of our culture. So again, it’s easy to assume that Mormonism is rather unique in our messy history. But that’s not the case at all. It’s no different from any other religion. It’s just how humanity and human civilization work. So OK, I have to point out this, this is something that really amused me. Um this beautiful iconic statue that inspired what eventually became the main symbol of Mormonism worldwide has bare shoulders. Can you see that it killed me when I realized that the angel Moroni blowing his horn on the central most iconic Mormon temple is actually not temple worthy because he couldn’t wear garments. And so I, I’m so I don’t know, easily amused and probably overworked. So I honestly laughed for hours about this, that angel Moon night isn’t temple worthy. And I had to call my awesome sister who’s been on my channel, who was hilarious. And I called her and told her and, and laughed about it and she came back with, well, Michelle, that’s why he’s on the outside. I thought it was so funny. That’s why he’s on the outside of the temple. So, anybody who’s ever been to a temple wedding and had to wait outside don’t feel bad because Angel Verona is in the same boat and he’s out there with you. So that’s just how it goes anyway. I hope that, that, that some of you found that as amusing as I did. I think it was really fun. So just like every other trend, angel statues on buildings soon fell out of fashion. So no more were included on church buildings until 1856. So we the church continued to build more temples. But again, they didn’t have Angel Moona that was just unique, limited to the Salt Lake Temple. But um in 1856 which was 60 years later and six temples later, the Los Angeles Temple became the second temple with an angel Maroni. And this was a new design this time with the Pesky Bear shoulder problem fixed. And so that was our second temple with the Maroni and then 18 years and six more temples later in 18, in 1974. If I’ve been saying 18, it’s just because my brain has been working in the wrong century. This whole time. It should be 19. I hope I’ve been saying that this was 1974 DC. The DC temple got the third Maroni. So for anyone keeping track that is 16 temples and only three with an angel Moroni, I have to say that this DC temple that was built in 1974 I love and laughed again that this angel Moroni has long hair. So anyone growing up in the seventies, this was before my time. But I’ve definitely heard, heard the stories in my own own family with my oldest brother and my dad. The biggest fights between parents and teenage sons in the seventies was over haircuts. So you can see Donnie got away with it. But the the John Travolta look long hair was what you wanted, not the short missionary haircut. And so my oldest brother did not get to get away with it and he had to keep his hair short, which just killed him. He would let it grow out a little bit. There was always this battle about hair. And so I just laugh if only my parents could have seen the newest Moon Night up close, look at his long hair in the seventies. And so that that was another great amusement to me. But by the 19 eighties, I guess, you know what, there’s a similarity with that. And um the Brigham Young statue at BYU campus, we always used to laugh that Brigham Young has a full beard standing right in the middle of the quad at BYU when none of the men were allowed to be anything other than clean shaven. So there are lots of stories of people complaining about being late to a test and having to hurry and shave. So they’d be led into the Testing Center to take their final. Yeah. So anyway, lots of funny ironies like that. So, um that was, I actually love the DC Angel Moroni. But by the 19 eighties when correlation was really in full swing, and this church started to standardize its franchise. The church commissioned this. What looks to me like a fully Mormon moroi, his robes match perfectly Joseph’s description. He has that great missionary haircut. He just looks like a 19 eighties Mormon to me in every way. And also this statue was made out of fiberglass so that it was easily transported. So they started to add, it was at this time that they started to add an angel moron to every temple. So every new temple got this angel moron or a very similar one. And um they actually added them on to almost all of the already existing temples as well. I think only the original three Utah temples didn’t get a moon. And I’ve always wondered why that’s interesting. Maybe the people wanted to in the local areas wanted to keep the um pioneer temple intact, which is now all changing. But I would love to know if anyone from Saint George or Manti or Logan knows why your temples didn’t get him. Ri I would, I would love to know. So, go ahead and let me know. But anyway, interestingly, although the exterior, so when we rebuilt the navoo temple, we were still in this um time of standardization. And um so while I the nou interior is completely different than the original, we’ll get into that again in the next episode. But the exterior is supposed to be an almost an exact replica. The main difference is that instead of the old fashioned weather vane angel, it now had an angel moroni when it was rebuilt. And so, um it’s similar to the new style but with a little longer hair. But incredibly, after considering what we have in the first episode, I think about the Nabu Temple being torn down by fire and tornadoes and thunder and lightning. This new Nabu angel was struck by lightning in 2019 and had to be replaced. So you can see what happened to it. And I just find that to be fascinating. I don’t want to read too much into it. Things happen, but that was interesting to me in with the history of the Nabu temple. So, um anyway, I love, I just love seeing how this new icon developed the angel that was originally just part of a trend that would have just come and gone with the styles of the time was rebirthed. And eventually stuck, stuck and took on a great deal of significance. And you can see how many different styles we’ve had over these years. Most of them are some variation of that standardized 19 eighties angel moroni that have gone all over the world on all of our temples. And so eventually the same scripture that originally inspired non-members Cyrus Dallin to scope the first non moroai angel which was revelation 6 to 7 became officially applied to our very own angel. Moona.
[31:23] President Hinckley: The figure of moon, I atop many of our temples is a constant reminder of the vision of John, the revelator. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of His judgment has come and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters.
[32:01] Michelle: So there’s more I want to talk about about Angel Marrone. I hope that was an interesting like understanding where it came from. But since this symbol has taken on such relevance to us as a people, it seems that God, well, since let’s see, 2nd 5 31 3 for the Lord God given light unto the understanding, for He speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding. I love that God speaks all to all of us in ways that we understand, which is why pretty much every faith tradition can work for those who are seeking and connected to God rather than just the tradition, right? And I happen to love the my faith tradition. I think it works really, really well. But anyway, the point I was making is that since this is such a central icon to us as members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, it seems like it would be a good way for God to communicate with us potentially, right? And so that’s what I want to talk about. We claim that moon nice trumpet represents the voice of warning to all nations, right? That’s definitely one of its symbols. And so I found it fascinating. I’m sure many of you did as well that on March 12th 2020 the church leaders set out for many, what was a shocking letter officially shutting down all opera operations and church meetings indefinitely. It said beginning immediately, all public gatherings of church members are being temporarily suspended worldwide until further notice that really hit me for a lot of reasons that I’ll go into for my personal reason. I want, you know, the the um prophets who see around corners or the watch on a tower to warn us of things coming in a way that can help us discern correctly and choose the right and be on the right side, not with whatever global forces are going around trying to destroy the freedom of all mankind. Sorry, let you a little much to in to insight, a little too much insight into my view of that whole situation. But that was shocking to me when that letter was sent because here we had the members of the church who traditionally really value freedom, especially in Utah, where I’ve always lived, right? We really value freedom, our own scriptures. Talk about the constitution being divinely inspired and only supposed to be like the constitution’s only the government is supposed to be limited to only what the constitution allows it to do. And all of a sudden when that was being really intensely threatened on a world stage, we have had leaders in the past warning us about these things. I think that the most of the members would have argued against that would have pushed back, would have not just gone along, but all of a sudden it came from our church and it came from our church leaders. So everyone just seemed to go right along with it, which shocked me. So anyway, I didn’t mean to go into that so much, but less than a week after that letter, Salt Lake experienced a rather moderate 5.7 earthquake. There were no casualties and few if any injuries, none that were noteworthy. But in what seemed almost too incredible to believe the quake caused Angel Moroni to drop his horn. And that was symbolism to me that was inescapable. You can see how incredible it was. I didn’t realize that the trumpet and the hand and arm weren’t even joined solidly. I thought that they were, but it just perfectly shook the trumpet away from angel Moone. So for people who believe in God and have any use for signs or miracles, this seems like it could be one of the most dramatic and explicit signs. Anyone could possibly ask for even more than a sudden tornado and lightning storm that brought down the Nabu temple, the ruins of the Nabu temple, right? I can’t help but wonder if it might perhaps be worthwhile to pay attention to this sign. So I know there are people who don’t see the world this way at all and just will laugh. That’s fine. I do see this world the way this, I do see the world this way. I believe in erring on the side of faith, not to the point of going crazy or you, you know, like, but just kind of going ok. Are, are there signs, you know, should I just assume everything is a coincidence or should I also believe that, you know, there are forces at work in the universe that communicate to us that care about us? That’s how I view the world. So anyway, I um I, I think I can’t help but think that um we may as a people and as a church would pay a lot more attention to an event like this if it told a story that we wanted to hear. Right. I think if, if, if it, if something this just crazy, this seemingly miraculous happened that went, that was in our favor, I think we would be shouting from the rooftops. Right. That’s what we tend to do. We would be talking about it all the time. But as it was, it seems that we just wanted to brush it under the rug in that very strange 2020 April General conference, which was less than a month after this happened. There was not a single reference to it. You would never have known that it had even happened. It wasn’t referred to at all. And so after standing atop the temple for 100 27 years, the trumpet less moroai was brought down the next next month, May 2020. And I had to laugh, I’m sure I’m reading too much into it maybe. But I laughed that they sort of put a shirt on him and covered up those bare shoulders when they brought him down. It just, I, I just find that to be a fun part of this episode, fun part of the story. So instead how and so going back to it, instead of paying attention to this, just unbelievable and I think perhaps meaningful event or taking it seriously at all, it seems that we’ve chosen a different direction instead of listening to what this this icon could teach us in dropping its trumpet. We instead seem to be stepping away from the icon, right? We are moving away from the angel moroni symbol. This is how it looks to me. So again, for anyone who grew up toting this book of Mormon, the Gods to a library um icon that the app icon on all of our phones and devices made us feel right at home, right? But in April 2020 just a few weeks after that, you know, after Moone, I made the tragic mistake of dropping his trumpet, the icon was changed to the new Chris and the arch logo um which, you know, I have mixed feelings about. I know that the one was just an icon and now we have another icon. But um it’s an interesting choice, right? And so um but that was just a minor thing. Um it was a telling change, but just a minor change compared to what you now see in all of the new temple designs. And this is interesting. It is possible like, like I’ve tried to be fair, maybe these were all in the works. But as I look over the website looking at all of the new temples, many of the temples that are still not yet dedicated do have a moon. It seems to me that it’s the temples that the renderings have been done since this happened, that are the vast majority of the temples that seem to be intentionally moron isis. So I can even here, I’ll share my screen and let you see. You can scroll through the many, many temples that the church has in the works. These are all renderings and it’s, it’s like way too many to scroll through all of them. There are just dozens and dozens, but you can see a theme. Right. Not a single one of them has an angel moroni. It just goes on and on. I don’t want to scroll too fast because you won’t be able to see and you can see that in alphabetical order. And I just barely got to the DS and the es so it goes all the way through every single temple you look at does not have a moon eye. I will include this page and also the page that the um on the church website of all of the temples under construction and coming around. So that is interesting to me. And again, people can argue over whether or not it should be, whether it has any meaning. I, I tend to think that um it’s somewhat telling, you know, I guess like moon, I just shouldn’t have dropped his trumpet because instead of looking at it, taking it seriously, we instead just got rid of angel moroni. So you can look at this um this little graph here, temples without an angel moroni statue and look at that hockey stick taking off in 2020 right? And so the church newsroom posted an updated statement that kind of sort of acknowledges the change about angel Moroni without acknowledging a change about Angel Moone. So this is um September 2020 it talks quite a bit and this is the last sentence. While the Angel Maroni statue occupies a prominent place on many temples throughout the world symbolizing the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not a requirement of temple design. Some temples may include the statue while others may not. So that is interesting that that happened, right? And that kind of also gives us a clue of when they started taking the angels off of the temples. And um however, when asked about it, a few weeks later, the church spokesman de declined to comment. So that’s the only thing they said about it. And there’s been no other information given about why we no longer have Angel Moroni as an icon of our church, which you know, I mean, I grew up with Angel Moroni. I kind of like him. So anyway, and again, you can, I’ll, I’ll share the screen where I mean, I’ll share um the link and you can go through the entire the church’s entire renderings of all of the recently announced temples and I just don’t find them to have angel moize when I looked, I believe that um of the 52 current um temples currently under construction, the six under renovation and the 97 announced uh only a tiny fraction of them have moon eye and it seemed to me that they were the ones that were already well underway. I could be wrong so someone could check on that. But another question we need to ask is which if any angel moron eyes will survive the renovations currently underway. So the Hong Kong Maroai didn’t survive the recent renovation. And if the renderings of the Provo Temple renovation are any indication it doesn’t look promising. Even the Provo Temple will not have an angel moroni. So honestly, while this is insane to even say and maybe I’m completely you know, out on a limb here, it seems we have yet to see whether the Salt Lake Temple will return with an angel moon night after the massive reconstruction being done on it, right? Are we going to in any case, will it be the same angel Moroni with a fixed and reattached trumpet? I I will be very curious to see what happens when the Salt Lake Temple is finished because even the Provo temple and any of the others like angel moron, I seems to be a thing of the past. So there will not be this book of Mormon anytime again soon. And like I said, it feels like a little bit of a loss to me because I loved that blue angel mone eyed book of Mormon. So now let’s go forward while there was not a word mentioned about it in the April 2020 conference, President Nelson did briefly acknowledge the trumpet dropping accident in his October 2020 conference. And that’s this is the one that I played the clip from at the beginning right after he said that he goes on to say this, we
[44:13] President Nelson: have undertaken a major project to extend the life and capacity of the Salt Lake Temple. Some question the need for taking such extraordinary measures. However, when the Salt Lake Valley suffered a 5.7 magnitude earthquake earlier this year, this venerable temple shook hard enough that the trumpet on the statue of the angel Merle and I fell just as the physical foundation of the Salt Lake Temple must be strong enough to withstand natural disasters. Our spiritual foundations must be solid. Then when metaphorical earthquakes rock our lives, we can stand steadfast and immovable because of
[45:02] Michelle: our faith. So it is very interesting to me that he used the word solid to describe how our foundations must be because that, that goes into the next thing I want to discuss in this episode, which is the massive renovation of the Salt Lake Temple. I kind of, you know, through 2020 2021 was just in my own trying to survive world. So I wasn’t terribly aware of things that were going on. So it’s been good to dig into these conferences that I wasn’t really clued into. And these general conferences and also into this project that I didn’t study at the time. So I wanna go back and um kind of give some foundation foundation is a keyword in this episode, but some foundation of where I think this all comes from. So Brigham Young said he wanted to build a temple that would last for the millennium. I’ve heard this stated as, as, as though it were a prophecy or a revelation, it wasn’t, if anything, it was an aspiration. He just, you know, I want this to be built well, so it will stand through the millennium. So I’ll read the three quotes I’ve been able to find of Brigham Young 1st 1857. A great many think we have a great many think we have been extravagant in laying so broad and deep a foundation for this temple. But I would rather have the foundation though it should though it should lay as it is till the millennium than to have the most splendid superstructure built upon a sandy foundation. That is an interesting quote, right? I’d rather finish nothing but the foundation than to build a temple on a weak and sandy foundation, which is exactly what they did. We’re gonna go forward. So then on the 22nd of August 1862 I expect this temple will stand through the millennium and brethren will go in and give the endowments to the people. And this is the reason why I am having the foundation of the temple taken up. That was just a few months after he said, which I’ll go into later. We have when he talks about being ashamed of the foundation of the temple because of what they have, what how, how it was done. So and then April 8th 1867 he again said we have commenced a temple that I want to see stand 1000 years when the earth we rests, we do not calculate that the building will fall down. You know, I was so distrustful about, distrustful about the foundation. There were so many things about it that I did not like that. We took it up and had to commence it again. We have got started now and I think it is safe when the temple is built. I want it to stand through the millennium in connection with many others that will yet be built by the elders. And um that the elders may go in and labor for the dead who have died without the gospel back to the days of Adam. So we’ll go into that quote quite a bit more because that’s the quote that’s mainly utilized. I do, I did wonder if it was possible that in so, so we know that they laid the sandstone foundation car covered it over Johnston’s army came, they dug and I well didn’t come. They were afraid they were going to come. And Barbara Jones Brown told me it wasn’t called Johnston’s army. So I can’t remember the correct title of what we nicknamed Johnston’s Army. But anyway, they dug it back up, the sandstone was cracked and they had to replace it with solid 15 ft granite bricks. That’s the story I was raised on. Right. That is not the story. So, first of all, I don’t think the sandstone was taken up, at least not most or much of it because there’s still a ton of sandstone and then they started to lay the granite. And so I was wondering if the granite was taken up, if the foundation was taken up a second time between 62. And Brigham said he was ashamed of it and 67 when he said he felt better about it, but I, I haven’t heard anything about that happening and I don’t see, you know, II, I, someone that has studied this more will have to help me with this because I want to know. But in any case, it doesn’t seem that the foundation was ever actually fixed, which we will go on to talk about more. So, ok, I want to take a little break here from our topic and share an important research tip. As I said, in my episodes with Whitney, people sometimes ask how, you know, for, for um help in how to do research. So I, you know, I, I think we all just have to dive in and start doing it. But I do want to share this important thing that I just found that I cannot believe I didn’t know about sooner. I have been frustrated in the past that I didn’t know how to access um general conference talks between the end of the journal of discourses and 1972. So the Journal of Discourse is the very last talk in that I think is 1885. And then the church website, the very earliest general talk conference talks included are 1971. And so I haven’t known how to find anything in between that time, time period. And um I absolutely should have done this long ago, but in frustration because I really felt like I needed that information for this episode. Um I just kind of started searching, how can I find these general conference talks? And I came upon this page on the church website and it lists four different references that you can go back and search old general conference talks. My favorite is the BYU general conference corpus as I’ve been using them. That’s the one that is the most user friendly to me. It takes a little bit of figuring out, but it works great back to 1850. So that’s what I used mostly on this episode. And then for older talks between 1841 which I think is the earliest that we have recorded, at least on any of these sources. Between 1841 and 1850 you can use option number four, which I believe is by us L DS scripture citation and index, which is a little bit more tricky for me to figure out, but some people might do really well with that. So anyway, this is a great tool because I have the um the complete discourses of Brigham Young is a must have that is really helpful, but that’s only Brigham Young, right? And still it stops at his death. And so to be able to add this and not just have the journal of discourses, just the ones that were included there, but everything that was included in general conference from 1850 on has been a huge, huge help for my research. So I wanted to share that with anyone else that is really, really helpful. So part of the reason I wanted it is because I realized I actually had never heard anyone say that the Salt Lake Temple was supposedly supposed to stand through the millennium until I was in my thirties. And um even then I didn’t know where it came from or if it was like just someone said, I thought the temple was supposed to stand through the millennium and that, you know, that was the first time I heard that. So I wanted to find out how central this had been to our teachings. If I just had happened to miss it. Or if you know, if this was a big part of what we understood as a church that the Salt Lake Temple in particular was supposed to stand for the millennium. So it was fascinating to do this research. Those three quotes by Brigham Young were all I could find anywhere nobody else referred to it that I could find in the journal of discourses or in any of these conference talks. It just wasn’t talked about other than Brigham three statements in 1857 1862 and 1867. And interestingly, he never mentioned it again after that either. And so it wasn’t until over a hun well, 100 years later, Brigham Young’s last statement was in 1867. And the first time I ever can find it mentioned in general conference was by Lagrande Richards in 1965. And so he started to talk about it at that point. He was an apostle and he says we have, we have to have a foundation upon which to build. I like this story. They tell about when they built this great temple here on this temple block and they tell us that the footings are 16 ft wide. And at one time, President Young came along and saw them throwing in some chipped granite, he made them take it out and putting these great granite blocks with this explanation. We are building this temple to stand through the millennium. So it was mentioned in general conference. But like over 10 years before I was born, he repeated it with the same topic in October 1870 1871. So several years later, and this is the first one that I that I found because it was included in the church website. I had to go to that other source to find the 65 the 1965. Again, this is 19. Did I say 18? Please listen to what I mean? Not what I say. If my tongue does not connect accurately with my brain. OK. So this is his 19 october 1971 quote. He said when the foundation was being laid, we are told that it was 16 ft wide. And at one time, Brigham Young came and saw the workman throwing in chipped granite, he made them take it out and put in those great granite blocks with this expo. We are building this temple to stand through the millennium. Isn’t that a good thought? Each one of us ought to want to build our lives and to help our families to build their lives so that we can stand through the millennium. So that was also his talk goes on quite a bit making that connection between the Salt Lake Temple Foundation and our spiritual foundation. That was the first time I could see that connection made was by La Grande Richards in 1865. So that’s like that device. He seems to be the first one to use that device of our f spiritual foundation compared to the Salt Lake Temple Foundation. And um I had, I, I didn’t know where he got it from. It made me wonder if he had access to the historical records or the, you know, Brigham Young’s teachings or journals. I didn’t know how he got it. But then I learned a little more which maybe I should have known, maybe some of you already know. But this could have very well been handed down to him because he said that story they tell, right? Both his father George F Richards and his grandfather, Franklin D Richards were not only apostles but presidents of the 12. And so he like from the very big, he had people in the know who could have handed him down this story. And interestingly, his grandfather was Franklin D Richards and his uncle was Willard Richards, the Willard Richards of Carthage Jail. And Joseph’s personal secretary who was the polygamist who was keeping Joseph’s um journal and he was also the official church historian and he kept that calling until his, so he was the one that oversaw Brigham’s rewriting of history. He was the second counselor in Brigham Young’s first presidency. So this could have very well been a personal connection that um Lagrande Richards was able to draw on to bring to resurrect this story, right? And interestingly, Tad R Callister is his grandson. There really are these family connections in our leadership. So, um ok, anyway, that was Lagrande Richards. He was the first one to mention it ever after Brigham Young. And it wasn’t mentioned again for 20 years when elder elder David Bh in 1991 cited Lagrande Richards with a footnote. So he quoted Lagrande Richard in conference. He said as the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple was being laid with foot with footing 16 ft wide. President Brigham Young discovered the workmen were using a soft stone. The work was halted, the soft stone taken out and replaced with giant blocks of granite. He declared we are building this temple to stand through the millennium. So elder hate again shared that story but only citing um the Grand Richards as his reference. He only got it from Elder Richard. So I thought this was all interesting. So at that point, it seemed to stick to that story. Well, sort of it, it was adjusted as need be. So President Hinckley in April 1993 said we have been criticized for the cost of these structures, the many temples that they were building a cost which results from the exceptional quality of the workmanship and the materials that go into them. Those who criticize do not understand that these houses are dedicated as the abode of deity and as Brigham Young stated are to stand through the millennium. So that was interesting because he again referred to that quote, but now he applied it to all temples, not just the Salt Lake temple, which is what Brigham Young said it about and then it changed even more in um I guess this is what four years later in April 8, 1997 President Hinckley referred to it again. But with no reference to Brigham Young, he said, I hope to see temples so located that members of the church can travel to one of these sacred houses within a reasonable distance of their sense of their homes though I live with it, this matter of temple construction is a thing of awesome wonder to me, we are trying to build in such a way and in such places across the world that these houses of the Lord may stand and serve through the millennium. So he again applied that temples need to stand for the millennium to all temples and this time with no reference to Brigham Young. So I found that to all just be interesting to trace our history and where our stories come from because I think it has direct application into things that are happening now. So president Faust in that same April 1997 conference expanded the story telling more of the history, which is that we covered in on the last episode about the building of Salt Lake Temple, but reapplying it, reapplying it to the temples to the temple building happening. Then he said referring to this great building that was to stand through the millennium. Brigham Young announced this is not the only temple we shall, shall build there will be hundreds of them built and dedicated to the Lord. So, um and I should have looked at the footnote he used ding it. I’ll have to go back and do that. Maybe I can add it. But um I don’t know if he was just going back to the Grand Richards or if he had access to more sources at this point. So that’s, that’s where that story came from to be in our, you know, in our doctrine at all. And I didn’t find it talked about at all again for the next two plus decades. It wasn’t mentioned again that I could find if anyone finds it. Let me know if I ever make a mistake, but I try to be pretty thorough. So then it, so, you know, it was talked about by President Hinckley in connection to all of the temples that he had started to build. Then it wasn’t talked about for 20 years and then came the massive renovation of the Salt Lake Temple first hinted at by President Nelson in October of 2018. He said with the passage of time, temples are inevitably in need in need of refreshing and renewal. To that end plans are now being made to renovate and update the Salt Lake Temple and other pioneer generation temples, details on these projects will be shared as they are developed. So that’s the first time anybody heard about it. And then in the next conference, April 2019. He said, sorry, scroll too much. He said we now have 100 and 62 dedicated temples. The earliest ones stand as monuments to the faith and vision of our beloved pioneers. Each temple constructed by them resulted from their great personal sacrifice and effort. Each one stands as a stunning jewel in the crown of pioneer achievement. Ours is a sacred responsibility to care for them. Therefore, these pioneer temples will soon undergo a period of renewal and refreshing. And for some a major restoration plans for the renovation of the Salt Lake Temple will be announced on Friday, April 19th 2019. And I just as I’m reading that now, it occurred to me that again, we have the Kirkman temple, right that I believe is in the possession of the community of Christ, correct me if I’m wrong. And I don’t know if the L DS church has taken the same, quite the same level of interest into preserving and renovating and upkeeping that temple as our own, which is interesting because that’s just as much a part of our history and of our pioneer ancestry, right? It’s just kind of like more and more, I just get the impression like we really are the Brigham Church, right? Brigham Young in a lot of ways is our found founder of our church and in many ways, maybe more than we’ve always recognized. So um the the press conference that was held on Friday, April 19th, took me a while to figure out how to watch it. I kind of thought why is it not here? So it was several clicks, not as straightforward as this um, headline makes it seem, but I eventually found it and I unfortunately couldn’t watch it on fast speed. Uh So if anyone wants to go watch it, you can, it was, you know, I’m glad I watched it, but it took a long time. So um there were many references back to the story of Brigham Young. Again. We we are now really um fully um resurrecting and um adopting that story, right? We talk about it a lot now. And so one of um here are some quotes. I think this is, oh, this is President Nelson at this press conference. One of the many evidences of the restoration of the Savior’s Church is the building of temples across the world. Temples are precious to us because in them church members and their families participate in sacred sacred ceremonies and ordinances that are the crowning facet of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the highest blessing that God offers to his faithful Children are available only in temples. So a lot of this really stood out to me. Um even more than it would have because of the work I’ve been doing on studying the history of the endowments. You know, we grow up hearing these things so they don’t strike us quite like they do when we learn a little bit more. So he continues on. Pioneer ancestors erected this iconic Salt Lake temple that now stands in stately Majesty as a beacon of light to all the world for 100 26 years. It has inspired and served generations of church members than and he goes on to say, may I add that every reasonable effort will be made to honor and maintain the temple’s historic beauty. We will strive to preserve its rev reverent um reverent setting and character as originally directed by President Brigham Young. So again, as I’ve been studying, I couldn’t help but wish that we would have the same dedication and willingness to not go just back to Brigham Young, but to go to not just only to the vision of Brigham Young, but all the way back to the vision and doctrine of his predecessor, Joseph Smith and I think his vision and doctrine in, in many ways to me seems more in keeping with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. But we’ll get into that a little bit more later. So this press conference was the first time they began to explain the plan for the plan for the massive project and talk about among many eight other things. A term that became very familiar to me as I, as I did all of this research base isolators. So again, we are going to be talking more about that later. So that was the press conference and I will attach it below. Um President Nelson mentioned it again, mentioned the construction project again in October 2019 and said, as you know, this was the talk where I, no, this was before, never mind. As you know, the Salt Lake Temple Temple Square and the adjoining plaza will be renewed in a project that will begin at the close of this year. This sacred temple must be preserved and prepared to inspire future generations just just as it has influenced us in this generation. And so that was October 2019. Then in April of 2020 Gary E Stevenson’s conference talk was the one that was really all about the renovation. It seems that he was the one best. Um I I, they say they’re not assigned, but you know, that was in the best position to give us the most information. So this is where the Temple Foundation story first directed resurrected by Lagrande Richards was reintroduced back into general conference after over 20 years. This is the one I referred to in the last episode was Gary E Stevenson’s talk about the history of the Salt Lake Temple as we tell it right? So um he again quoted Brigham Young saying, I want to see the temple built in a manner that it will endure through the millennium. This is not the only temple we shall build, there will be hundreds of them built and dedicated to the Lord. This temple will be known as the first temple built in the mountains by the latter day saints. That’s interesting because we can look at this as prophetic as they do, you know. But actually the Salt Lake Temple wasn’t the first temple built in the mountains by the lottery. They say right at the best. It was the fourth built in, in um the great basin in Utah. So um I want that, he, he goes on to say, I want that temple to stand as a proud monument of the faith, perseverance and industry of the saints of God in the mountains. So now I’m so um elder Stevenson goes on to say in reviewing this brief history, I am in awe of the seers of Brigham Young first, his ensuring that to the extent possible and using construction methods available at the time and place this Salt Lake temple would be built in a manner to endure throughout the millennium. And second, his prophesying of the growth of future temples worldw worldwide even to number them in the hundreds. He goes on to explain that as presiding bishop Rick, he Gary Elder Stevenson oversaw a full facility review of the Salt Lake Temple. It um he quotes from it. I’ll just quote part of what he quotes the granite exterior and interior floor joists and beams are in good condition. Recent studies confirm that the location chosen by Brigham Young for the temple has very good soil and excellent compaction qualities. So note that in mentioning what is in good shape and what was well done. He doesn’t say anything about the foundation and that will go on to become a recurring thing as they continue to literally uncover more and more about that original foundation. So among other things, the review recommended a comprehensive seismic upgrade. I’m still quoting it is the sincere hope of church leaders that the significant renovations to the Salt Lake Temple will contribute to the fulfillment of Brigham Young’s desire to quote, see the temple built or to to see the temple built in a manner that it will endure through the millennium during the coming years. May we allow these improvements made to the Salt Lake Temple to move and inspire us as individuals and families so that we too metaphorically will be built in a manner that will endure through the millennium. So again, he used that same device that Lagrande Richard started of comparing the um temple, the Salt Lake Temple Foundation to our spiritual foundation, which was the theme of his talk other than telling us about the renovation. And so I just have to point out what I see as just massive irony to repeatedly refer back to Brigham Young’s quote about building the temple to stand through the millennium when Brigham Young very much did not build the temple to last to last throughout the millennium, right? And I, you know, I, I like again, I don’t want to fault the pioneer ancestors, this is a massive undertaking. But we keep saying this as if Brigham Young built such a solid foundation and it needs to be the model for our foundation when that simply isn’t the case, this huge, like practically unprecedented renovation and construction project and this almost unfathomable expenditure on it proves that right, that like, I think there are a lot of old buildings that don’t all need this kind, this like frequent of and massive of um help to, to keep them standing. Right. And so people just don’t do this kind of a job and the on these old buildings because it costs infinitely more to keep a building like this standing when it doesn’t have a good foundation than it would cost to simply rebuild it to. Right. Like you could even take a part at this. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you could even take a car part. This building, put a new foundation, put the building back. You could do that for far less than we’re spending on what we’re doing with it. Right. Or, you know, we could take it down, build a really solid, solid foundation and rebuild the temple that, that could be done as well. They’ve done that with several other buildings. But for some reason, um anyway, we’ll get into this a little bit more. But I really do think that it’s ironic to keep quoting Brigham Young’s prophetic ability to say this temple will stand through the millennium. And we’re having to go to a lot of expense to help that prophecy come through if, if we want to view it as a prophecy. So another quote from this talk, as you may recall, President Young President Brigham Young himself was involved in great detail in the construction of the original temple foundation which has served the temple well, since its completion 100 27 years ago. So that was interesting when he’s talking about how involved he was in the foundation of the temple as if he was making sure it was done, right? And I think that Brigham Young wanted to, but I just want to refer back again to that June 1st 1862 quote where here’s just a portion of it where he said we had a fine sample the other day when we took, when we went and took up a few of those big granite rocks which are in the foundation of our temple and we found them wedged and propped up with little p pieces and small with little pebbles and small pieces of sandstone. I wish I never had anything to do with the foundation of this temple for I am ashamed of it. And interestingly with all the other quoting they do of Brigham Young, they never include that part of his quote, right? They say other things around it but not that part. And so um the following. So, so we’ll move on from Gary E, Stevenson’s talk. The following conference, April, I mean, October 2020 was when President Nelson addressed the renovation and that was the clip above about Angel Moone um dropping his, his trumpet. So that’s what I was going to say. It was this talk October 2020 when he addressed that. So here’s a quote, some questioned the need for taking such extraordinary measures, meaning the renovation. However, when the Salt Lake Valley suffered a 5.7 magnitude earthquake earlier this year, this venerable venerable temple shook hard enough that the trumpet on the statue of the angel Moroni fell. So he mentions it but doesn’t say anything else about it. Just as the physical foundation of the Salt Lake Temple must be strong enough to withstand natural disasters, our spiritual foundations must be solid. That was from his October 2021 talk, the temple and your spiritual foundation. And he shared um a video in that talk. I just want to play this one clip
[1:11:35] President Nelson: these many decades later. However, if we examine the foundation closely, we can see the effects of erosion gaps in the original stone work and varying stages of stability in the masonry. Now, as I witness what modern engineers, architects and construction experts can do to reinforce that original foundation, I am absolutely amazed. Their work is astonishing the foundation of any building, particularly one as large as this one must be strong and resilient enough to withstand earthquakes, corrosion, high winds and the inevitable settling that affects all buildings. The complex task of strengthening now underway will reinforce this sacred temple with a foundation that can and will stand the test of time.
[1:12:44] Michelle: He goes on to say we are sparing no effort to give this venerable temple which had become increasingly vulnerable. A foundation that will withstand the forces of nature into the millennium. So that’s where he talked about it again, that they are determined to make the Salt Lake Temple stand through the millennium and it hasn’t been addressed in a conference since that I could find. So now I want to dive in and look into the what they are actually doing in this renovation project. So it was first described, introduced by elder Stevenson in his April 2019 talk that I was quoting from
[1:13:22] Elder Stevenson: the newly proposed seismic upgrade package for the temple would utilize base isolation technology which was not even imagined at the time of its construction. In essence, it structurally strengthens the temple to stand steadfast even as the earth and environment around it undergo an earthshaking seismic event.
[1:13:46] Michelle: And then a little more detail about the base isolation was provided by Brent Roberts at the press at the press conference, a base isolation system will be installed. This system is one of the most effective means of protecting the structure against these earthquake forces. It is a collection of structural elements which should substantially decouple the temple from the earth, thus protecting the building’s structural integrity. So I wanted to repeat what he said there, it is a collection of structural elements which would substantially decouple the temple from the earth. That’s amazing. Right. So the church newsroom began to release a series of video explanations on the project and I’ll play a clip, they, they’re worth watching, you know, and um I’ll just play a few clips.
[1:14:38] Construction Guy: The seismic upgrade of the temple is uh significant. It’ll take a lot of work to put it on a base isolation system that separates it from the earth. So that in an earthquake, the earth moves and the temple moves less.
[1:14:49] Michelle: So just this year, they released an almost nine minute video that does a fantastic job of explaining the entire process and I’ll attach it below. I’m not gonna take time. I, I do recommend watching the entire thing to get a better idea of this massive construction project. In fact, if you want to pause it and watch that video, some of this might make more sense. But um I’ll just play a few clips here
[1:15:11] Church Video Voiceover: over the years. The Salt Lake Temple has undergone several renovations, but in 2019, church leadership announced the largest renovation yet a complete seismic upgrade with reinforcements that reach from below the foundations to the tips of the spires base isolation is the process of installing mechanical systems below the building that isolate the earth’s movement from the structure overhead in effect, they allow the earth to move beneath while the building overhead remains more stable. Once the upper foundation is complete, it will transfer the weight of the temple completely onto the base, isolators and the earth beneath the cylindrical beam platform and the original foundations is removed.
[1:15:59] Michelle: So to sum up after the renovation, we will have a temple that is actually detached from the earth. This huge massive project is designed to completely separate the temple from the earth and hold it above the earth on a movable foundation that can apparently withstand just about any natural disaster or any act of God, right? So that, that struck me. So in keeping up with my study, well, just this entire study of the Salt Lake Temple. I again have, I’ve just had so many mixed feelings and I do again here. I mean, this really is a seriously amazing engineering feat and a huge part of me is glad that they’re doing it. And I’m really excited to see the result of the project from what they describe. It’s going to be, you know, quite interesting. I am sad to be losing the visitor center again, the north visitor center that I grew up where you have that spiral outer space and walk up to the cry and you have all of the um I think it was down in the basement that there were all of the wax figures from the book of Mormon. I really loved, I loved that. So I’m kind of sad to not be able to take my Children there and let them experience what did someone call it? Um, I don’t know, someone called it irreverently like Star Trek Jesus or something that’s for, for me, it wasn’t that. It just always gave me the coolest, like, oh, I love, I loved that. So, anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what they, what they have instead. So part of me is like, ok, like excited to see what this is going to be. But I the rest of me, another huge part of me is just deeply well intrigued and honestly quite troubled about what I see as inescapable symbolism throughout all of this. I, I don’t know how everyone doesn’t see it. We all grew up singing the Wise Man, built his house upon the rock, the wise man built his house upon the rock, right? Like we understand that we’re still seeing how firm a foundation you saying of the Lord? Like from the earliest history, we have been told about the temp the the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple quite a bit and how our foundation needs to be as strong. I think that made it into several of our manuals or talks and lessons, right? And so learning that actually from the earliest history, the Salt Lake Temple was built on a sandy foundation until now when we seem to be trying to fix that problem by creating a temple with no solid foundation. I, I don’t know, um I would love to hear people’s comments if they think I’m reading too much into this, that the, the symbols should just be ignored, right? If it’s just coincidence or, I mean, it seems to me that God gives us these symbols that we inevitably play out, right? We don’t see, they don’t seem avoidable and I see that happening again. And so to me again, this is a profound, another profound testimony of the importance and relevance of the book of Mormon and its direct applicability to us, our people, the people who claim to believe in it, the people who claim to be reading it, right? So I want to share a few verses that I think do apply to this situation. At least to me they seem to Helaman 512. And now my sons remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our redeemer who is Christ, the Son of God that you must build your foundation that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yay his shafts in the world. Yeah, when all his hail and mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the Gulf of misery and endless woe because of the rock upon which you are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon, if men, if men build, they cannot fall. The message seems so clear. If we’re built on the right foundation, we don’t need to be so worried about falling, right? And I think that that is true, both spiritually symbolically, spiritually and physically, right? So Jesus himself repeated this teaching in both the old and the new worlds. It’s in both the New Testament and the book of. And so I’ll read from 35 1424 and 25. Therefore, who so here at these sayings of mine and do with them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock and the rains descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house and it felt not fell, not for, it was founded upon a rock connected to the earth on rock, right? And so the book of Mormon really could not be more clear about how we are to build our foundation and it is upon rock, the symbol of Christ, not sand, which to me appears to be symbolic of perhaps an unwillingness to hear and accept received truth when it is presented because we are too steeped in tradition. Second Nephi 2828 and 29 is, is an example and in fine what woe unto all those who tremble and are angry because of the truth of God. For behold, he that is built upon the rock, receives it with gladness and he that is built upon a Sandy Foundation tremble lest. He shall fall. So many of us can resonate with that, right? When these truths, the truths that are, that are being shared in this podcast, when they’re, when, when you hear them, right? Or when you study them out and find them, do they resonate with you? Do you receive them with gladness or are you too defensive of the Sandy Foundation of Church history that we have to fight against them? Right? Ah It’s so clear wo be unto Him that shall say we have received the word of God and we need no more of the word of God for we have enough. I do think that has a universal application to anyone who refuses to continue to humbly learn and be led and directed by God. Right? It’s certain it certainly applies to us as a people. And so this seems to be where we have been on a sandy foundation and I think the temple provides a powerful symbol of that. Now, thankfully more truth is coming forth like crazy as we have so much more access as people are bringing forth so much more um information to us that really does resonate as true, right? I’m so thankful that um we have the opportunity to accept it that so many people are doing this and, and I hope so many people are accepting the truths and the messages at least um being willing to consider them and grapple with them. And see what resonates, right? I hope that more and more people will do that. And so we have the choice of when truth is coming forward, either doing that or doubling and tripling down on the false traditions, going to extreme measures to try to cement and shore up shaky foundations. The shaky sandy foundations, even to the point of creating a floating structure with no solid foundation at all. So again, the symbolism to me seems inescapable. So when we’re talking about a building that is separate above the earth first Nephite 826 and I also cast my eyes round about and beheld on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building and it stood as it were in the air high above the earth, you know, like an earthquake couldn’t affect that building either. Maybe there is nothing to this for those who don’t believe in signs and symbols like, you know, like we’ve been talking about all of these, you can just throw this all away. But um for people who see meaning and things like Angel Moroni dropping his trumpet on March 18th 2020 just a few months after this renovation began and a few days after the premeditated shutdown began, it seems like maybe these are things that we should perhaps pay attention to. So one question that people have had from the beginning of when this um project was announced was how much this massive renovation would cost. This was actually the first question asked at the press conference. Hello there, Jared Haley Higgins from Fox 13. This is a massive project. How much is it gonna cost?
[1:24:32] Bishop Davies: Well, let me turn to our leadership first, the presiding bishop, Rick Bishop Davies, the uh thank you for that uh question. Um Any project of this magnitude is costly uh to excavate to remove buildings and put new buildings in place, require very significant uh resources of the, of the church. Uh All of the budgetary matters are presented to the first presidency, the K of the 12, but the actual dollar amount we do not release, but it, it would reflect the the scale and scope of the project. As we understand it,
[1:25:09] Michelle: the only estimates I have been able to find and I have no idea how accurate they are. I’m not in construction or the architecture, any of that. So, you know, it would be fascinating. I would love to hear if anyone’s interested that that does have expertise in these fields that could dig out the the descriptions of what they’re doing and provides an estimated cost because I would like to know if this is accurate. The only estimate estimate I have been able to find by someone who has done that is that this would cost in the range of $2 billion. Again, I don’t know if that’s true because the church hasn’t released it. But, and, but as I think about it. I mean, maybe, you know, that, that sounds possible as much as anything else. I don’t know if someone can tell me. And I realized in thinking about that, that I don’t even know how much money that is. Like, I don’t even have a way to understand the $2 billion what that actually means. And so fortunately from what we do know of the church’s financial holdings, it seems that the church will be able to afford it. So that’s one thing, you know, they can do it so they can afford to. So there’s not a reason I guess that they shouldn’t. And so I looked up out of curiosity, I looked up Jacobson construction, the contractor and so found that they also built a massive new award winning headquarters, you know, after the project would have been announced and underway and all the contracts signed long ago. So, you know, I don’t know, I can’t be certain that it’s related, but it certainly seems like it possibly could be because this was a big job. Right. Let me just play this one video clip from, um, from their own website talking about their company. I
[1:26:51] Jacobson Construction: started at Jacobson just at the end of 1999. And in that year, we had 100 and $89 million worth of revenues. And in uh 2022 we’re projecting to be somewhere between 900 million and a billion dollars of revenues. We have been very blessed as an organization.
[1:27:07] Michelle: The temple renovation is by no means the first job they have done for the church. So I don’t want to, you know, imply that this is new. I know that they did the conference center and City Creek Mall, the Provo Temple um BYU Hawaii buildings that like many, many more things and frankly, tons of huge projects um particularly in Utah. So again, I don’t know if the $2 billion projection is accurate. Um But since I don’t have anything better to go on, since the church doesn’t um release any information about their finances or their projects or their spending. Um I just had to go on that and I searched to try to get a better understanding of what $2 billion would mean, what a $2 billion would look like. That was interesting. Frankly, there aren’t a lot of multibillion dollar buildings in the world, but um I found two examples of buildings. One right under one. Right. Right. That are right around $2 billion. And so I’m um I also am not sure yet if these projects already owned the land as the church already owns the land. So I don’t know if that $2 billion included having to purchase the land, which wouldn’t be the case with the church. So I don’t know. So here are just two examples. The Palazzo in Las Vegas reportedly cost 1.8 billion to build. It is a massive hotel casino resort. It’s 642 ft tall and 7.5 million square feet and that’s 7.5 million luxury square feet. The palazzo is over three times and as tall and almost 30 times larger in square footage than the Salt Lake Temple. Not to mention all of the huge over the top amenities, 11 massive pools, over 40 restaurants, three huge performance venues, massive casino, so much more. I sound like I a travel agent and I I’m not trying to be I actually don’t no offense but I don’t like Las Vegas at all. So if the estimates are correct building this incredibly huge, you know, ostentatious building cost less than the temple renovation. And this only took three years from start to finish. The temple was was supposed to take four years when it was first announced, we’ll get into that a little bit more. So let me give one more example. This is I think it’s called an Tilia. This is uh just ridiculous, unbelievable lux luxury home in Mumbai, India. This one actually does put the Gardo house to shame. So at a reported $2 billion it’s the most expensive private residence in the world. Only the $5 billion. Buckingham Palace is more expensive, but that’s a crown property, not quite the same as a private residence, but just like the royal family. Um This is not, this family’s only residence either. And it’s built in a country where most people struggle to survive on less than 2 $2 per day. So kind of hard to see this kind of thing. It does remind me a little of the gar house, but worse, so I won’t go into all the ridiculous amenities. It’s 27 floors, but since um, most have double high ceilings, it’s actually the height of a 60 story skyscraper. It has six floors just for cars. It has 100 and 68 car garage with um that has, that’s complete with a full service station as well. It has three separate airport regulation helipads. Um By the way, all of these things are legal in India and Mumbai, but apparently many talks and you know, the family lives on the top floor. So the helicopters are more convenient than the 168 luxury cars apparently. So it has just dozens of hanging gardens, nine high speed elevators that has a mass ballroom, a huge 50 seat luxury theater, a full salon, a full luxury yo um frozen yogurt parlor 20, it has a two story recreation center. So that’s the equivalent of four stories worth of space, right? That includes a huge gym, massive pools, a full spa, a full sanctuary, a full dance studio, a full yoga studio. And even it says it has a mega temple. I don’t know exactly what a mega temple is, but this house has one it goes on and on with ridiculousness including, oh, it has an actual snow room where the walls create snowflakes that fall into the room. So, you know, if you live in Mumbai, there’s no snow there. So you have to make your own. Um It also has a staff of 600 to keep it running. So those are two examples of what $2 billion would build, right? So any of the multibillion dollar buildings in this world are just not in any way comparable to the Salt Lake Temple. It’s, it’s not anywhere near the same category. Um I I really think this is a big part of why so many of the workers and leaders on the project in the many videos that you can watch about it, talk about how the Salt Lake Temple renovation is completely unique. Truly a once in a lifetime project, once in a lifetime opportunity from what I have been able to see these things just aren’t done because you don’t put this much money into a building that is worth so much less than you’re putting into it, right? It’s like um a a totaled car, right? You’re not gonna go put new tires and a new radio stereo system in a car that’s only worth a few $100 right? So anyway, I don’t want, I’m not saying this to demean the Salt Lake Temple in any way. I’m just saying that with the amount of money that they apparently are putting into the renovation, you could easily rebuild several Salt Lake temples and, and much, much more. Right. So, um it, it, it does seem, I’m, like I said, I’m not an expert, but it does seem very clear that you could take apart the temple stone by stone, put in a good foundation, rebuild it for a lot less than what they are doing. So this leads me to the question of why, why are they doing this? Why put this much money into preserving this one particular building? As I said, like, I mean, we’ve rebuilt the Nfu temple. But you know, it it’s possible that Brigman might have had intentionally ordered that to be burned down. You know, people need to research that on their own. And we’re not putting anything like this into the first building of the rest of the restoration, the Kirtland Temple, right Kirtland House of the Lord. I need to remember that. So, so anyway, it’s really interesting that the Salt Lake Temple has taken on this status where um it needs to preserved like literally at any cost. So I think, I think there are reasons to look at that come through many of the sentiments expressed in these videos, in these conference, talks in the press conference and in places where they talk about it. So I’m just going to share a few of them to kind of try to share the essence of what seems to me to be the real motivation here. So this is um these are just little s from several of President Nelson’s statements. He said pioneer ancestors erected this iconic Salt Lake temple that now stands in Ma in Stately Majesty as a beacon of light to all the world for 100 6, 26 years. It has inspired and served generations of church members. Another quote, this sacred temple must be preserved and prepared to inspire future generations just as it has influenced us in this generation. So those really struck me in this context. It we are claiming that we look to the temple as our beacon of light and as our source of guidance and inspiration and hope and faith, right? Like, like we’ve set the temple in that space, which is interesting because it’s just a building. We’re shutting it down for multiple years. We could re rebuild a building, right? I don’t know why the temple has taken on this significance, this place that it seems to be taking. It’s really interesting to me. And so um I’ll show just a few other little snippets that kind of will get the idea that across that I seem to be seeing this next quote I believe is Andy Kirby, it might be Brent Roberts, but I believe it’s Andy Kirby. Both of them appeared together in this interview on the church news. We’re protecting the temple as a whole. Our side seismic upgrade to the temple is a preservation of the temple as a whole, not just the historical building, but the symbol itself. So our seismic work preserves the temple as a building that will stand as a reminder of the dedication of the saints in the past, but also as a symbol for all of us to look forward to the coming of Christ. So again, this, this building, they’re saying we’re not just preserving the building, we’re preserving everything that stands for everything it represents, right? And um there were there are many, many other statements I could have pulled out by going through all of these videos and talks again. But I’ll let each of you do that on your own. Anyone who cares to from all that I have read. It seems to me that the real reason for this incredible renovation has less to do with securing the actual building than it does, securing the narrative, right? That’s what I think they are actually um trying to shore up, trying to make earthquake proof, trying to make sure it stands is the narrative that came through the builders of the temple that came through Brigham Young, right? We have claimed that Brigham said that the temple that Brigham Young, so the temple would stand for 1000 years. It clearly was not going to stand for 1000 years. It has been renovated multiple times and from everything I’ve been seeing, it actually was not built terribly well from the foundation, right. The temple is a symbol and if it were to fail or to fall, that symbolism, I believe would be unacceptable. I think that’s what’s happening here. I find it strange that, that symbolism seems important when we seem so proficient at ignoring all of the other. I think equally important symbolism. Right? The symbolism of the temple having this really sandy Foundation, the, the symbolism of Maroni dropping his trumpet. I think these things are things we maybe could pay attention to. If we’re going to think that the other symbolism might be important. If we say the Salt Lake temple standing is an important symbol, then we should pay attention to symbols, right? And so I would be interested in hearing other people’s opinions. But honestly, from the research I have done, I would sum it up by saying that the church wants to do literally whatever it takes to make sure Brigham’s supposed prophecy that the temple would stand through throughout the millennium comes true at any cost. In some ways, the things we talk about this episode will actually make more sense. After the next episode. After the episode on endowments, they’ll make more sense. But much of what we seem to have done is I think that we have to some extent turned the temple into an idol and I’m sorry if that’s hard for some people to hear. But, but like, and maybe I’m wrong, right? But, but do be willing to at least consider that because of what we are doing, how the temple is the beacon that we look to the temple is the source of our inspiration and our hope and it’s where we focus and it needs to stand so that people can continue to have hope and inspiration and focus and have a beacon of light. I that doesn’t make sense to me, right? Unless we have created an idol out of, in particular the Salt Lake Temple. And so um in part two, I talked about so I wanna, I wanna go back to um the end of the second episode on Temples where I talked about Wilfred Woodruff’s motivation to finish the Salt Lake Temple in conjunction with the official claimed end of polygamy to reg galvanize the church and, and renew the people’s faith and then in a new direction and around a new focal point, right? And so I do think, as I said, I do think it’s wonderful that he took the steps he did of tearing down the endowment house and issuing the first manifesto at least to um officially end polygamy on the books. I know that it wasn’t enough. II I know I, I felt bad that I, I guess I gave the impression I got a lot of comments of people pushing back on that, which surprised me because I was like, yeah, I know. So I must have given, I must have overstated it. But um I will say, while I know it wasn’t enough and it didn’t actually completely solve the problem. The number from what I see have seen, the number of plural marriages did drop drastically at that point. So it was a big, big step. Right. And it shook it out of the people’s, you know, it, it wasn’t the central doctrine being preached anymore, but it appears that, that in the process of doing that, we, we got rid of polygamy as the central. I I don’t know if polygamy was an idol, but as the central focus of our church, we got rid of that and seemed to have instead replaced it with temples and with prophetic infallibility with the teaching that the prophet can never lead the church astray, right? That seems to have then kind of out with the old in with the new and that seems to have been the new, all of those Children that were brought to the newly finished Salt Lake Temple to hear the prophet and all of the church leaders talk, right? We talked about all of those Children being brought on the box cars that seemed to really embed that new focus and that new course that has continued with us. Those seem to be some of the central doctrines are like temples, temple work, temple ceilings, we have temples, right? And the prophet can never lead us astray. Those do still seem to be some of our central doctrines just as polygamy was the central doctrine before. And um I’m, I’m concerned that we have to some extent, set up a structure made by our own hands as almost the symbol of our worship that we have turned the temple in some ways into our own golden calf. And I, I know that I may be, um, people may really think this is hard to hear because of course, they have the best of intentions and, you know, I don’t think people are necessarily doing this on purpose, but it made me think, well, maybe people have always had the best of intentions, right? But maybe it’s not that people intentionally want to establish idols. Maybe it’s just as the scriptures teach that because of pride and because of false doctrines because of a willingness to set those things aside and to hearken when we are, when it’s brought to our attention, maybe that’s part of what is going on. So it seems to me that we have missed the clear message that Jesus is not a building and Jesus is not confined to a building. I’ve never paid really close attention to these scriptures before that I’m going to share. At least not that I remember as I have while working on this episode. Um while I was doing this, the term made with hands came to my mind really strongly and I felt like I need to, I need to really search that out. And so I did, I searched it in the scriptures. And um man, I’ve been doing a lot of pondering on what I found. So let me share a few scriptures, Hebrews 911. But Christ being come, being come and high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hands. That is to say not of this building, right? Jesus is not made with hands. We don’t worship anything made with hands. It’s not confined to a building, it’s not contained in a building and it’s we don’t look to a building. Um at 1724 God that made the world and all things there in seeing that He is the Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in temples made with hands, neither is worshiped with men’s hands as though he he needed anything seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things. That was an interesting one. Second Corinthians 418. And I think 51, I think it’s the end of the chapter in the beginning of the next chapter in our scriptures. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen for the things which are, which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal for. We know that if our earthly house is um that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens, right? If our building dissolved, would that hurt us? If the Salt Lake Temple needed to be torn down and reconstructed or replaced? Or if it did fall in an earthquake, would that harm harm us? Really? Would that sever our connection to God would like? Is the temple building structure? Truly? What is sacred? What must be, what must stand in order to enable us to have faith and inspiration and light II, I think that maybe, maybe we’re getting something wrong here. Um So I need to back up, I’m not in any way trying to say or imply that temples are bad or that God’s spirit cannot be felt in temples. Again, that’s not what I believe. And many of us have had profound experiences in temples and both the Bible and the Book of Mormon speak positively of temples. In both books, Christ comes to the temple. But more and more as I’ve been doing this, I just, I don’t know that I believe that God or the blessings of God are confined to temples, right? And, and again, I’ll go into that more in the next episode. Um But let me at least share this scripture after, after speaking extensively on faith repentance, becoming as a little child, being baptized and being visited with fire. And the holy ghost, Jesus goes on to say in third me, 511 says 39 and 40 verily verily, I say unto you that this is my doctrine and who, who so build upon this, build upon my bro and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them and whoso shall declare more or less than this and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil and is not built upon my rock, but he build upon a sandy foundation and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them that hit me so hard. Um That really hit me hard. I think that that applies directly to us, especially understanding the literal truth of the Salt Lake Temple Foundation, right? And so um I think it is interesting to look at what we look to as our symbol. I, I spent some time on this in the book of Mormon and I might have gotten it a little wrong because it was really late last night and I was counting really fast. But from what I saw in the book of Mormon, the word Temple is used 35 times and the word Jesus is used 300 times. The word Christ is used even more than that. I didn’t, I didn’t count those. I didn’t take the time to do this. But it would be an interesting exercise to compare if um the the conference talks have the same ratio. I know they always end in the name of Jesus Christ. So that bumps up the use of Jesus. But I’m just curious to know where our focus is, is um more drawn to a lot of times, even when they are talking about Jesus, they’re talking about the temple. When they’re talking about the temple, they’re talking about Jesus. I found several quotes like that, that um like where President Nelson would say you need to have your faith founded on Jesus Christ by going to the temple and having your right. We we kind of make them synonymous in a, in a way. So it’s just interesting to, to think about all of this. I also, when I was talking about that, I’m not trying to say temples are bad. Joseph Smith did build a house of the Lord and did or you know, say to build a temple. So all of this has to be grappled with. I don’t want to throw anything out. I don’t wanna make any definitive declarations or, you know, this is my journey of just discovery that I’m inviting you to come along with me and please share your thoughts as well. So we can all learn together because I feel like I have a whole lot to study out here to try to understand better. So um there are other scriptures actually that I find it to be even more compelling on this topic. I was fascinated to learn in one of the many videos I have repeatedly watched that the Temples, that Temple Square is actually home to a beloved tree that is literally a cedar of Lebanon. Apparently a woman brought it as a seedling, I think in the fifties, maybe the late forties to Temple Square where it was planted and it’s been protected all of these years. I think it’s a 70 year old tree that, um, has, has grown and I’ll show you this little clip.
[1:49:17] Voiceover: Great care is taken to preserve dozens more, including these honeysuckle trees and the cedar of Lebanon gifted to the church as a seedling more than 70 years ago.
[1:49:26] Construction Guy: It’s a special tree. It’s beautiful, beloved by many. This will go through great efforts to preserve this tree as we excavate around it.
[1:49:34] Michelle: So when I heard this, it again, brought Isaiah to mind. So I started searching Isaiah with the context of everything I was thinking about and everything I was learning. I actually reread. Well, we listened to I, I do better listening while I’m working, we listened to the entire book of Isaiah in the context of the temple renovation. I did go back and read much of it. I had to make notes. It was amazing. I don’t have time to share. I won’t go into my entire re reading of Isaiah. But I think it’s a valuable exercise for anyone who wants to um engage in that. I think any reason to reread Isaiah is probably valuable and worthwhile. So here’s just one more reason that you can consider doing it I’m just going to share 22 of the parts that stood out to me found in chapters two and chapters nine of Isaiah. Both of them are included in our book of Mormon as Second Me by 12 and 19. And so as members of the church, we are extremely familiar with parts of both of these chapters, the earlier parts, but I think we are almost completely ignorant of the later parts, the parts that really resonated with me in this context. So I’m going to read from the book of Mormon version. So second Nephi 12 and then second Nephi 19 and starting in verse two of chapter 12, and it shall come to pass. This is, this is the part that you’ll be familiar with and it shall come to pass in the last days when the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the tops of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all the nations flow unto it. And many people shall go up and say, come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of God of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths for out of the Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And then let me see, this might be where we start to lose some of the familiarity I’m going down to verse five and seven and eight. I’ll skip through a little bit o House of Jacob. Come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord. Yay. Come for ye. Have all gone astray. Everyone to his wicked ways. This follows right after those verses. We are familiar with their land also is full of silver and gold. Neither is there any end of their treasures? Their land also is full of horses. Neither is there any end of their chariots? Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands that which their own fingers have made for. I’m skipping some verses. Not because they, I need to just for time’s sake for the day of the Lord soon cometh upon all nations. Yay upon everyone, yay upon the proud and lofty and upon everyone who is lifted up and he shall be brought low, yay. And the day of the Lord shall come upon all the cedars of Lebanon. That’s what drew my attention for. They are high and lifted up and upon all the oaks of Bishan and upon all the high mountains and upon the hills and upon all the nations which are lifted up and upon every people and upon every high tower, we’re gonna get to that and upon every fenced wall and the loftiness of man shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of man shall be made low and the Lord alone shall be exhausted in that day. And the idols, he shall utterly abolish and they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the for the fear of the Lord shall come upon them and the glory of his Majesty shall um and, and the glory of his Majesty shall smite them when he arises to shake terribly the earth. What we seem to be trying to prevent in that day, a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold which he hath made for himself. Worship to the moles and to the bats to go into the clefts of the rocks and into the tops of the ragged rocks. For the fear of the Lord shall come upon them in the majesty of his glory and the majesty of his glory shall smite them when he arises to shake terribly the earth. See she be from man whose breath is in his nostrils for when wherein is he to be accounted of? Why should we worship man? Right? Or the work of man’s hands? Why should that be a symbol of our faith or a symbol that needs to be preserved to this extent? So, wow, in the con that, that was really meaningful to me. And I’ll, and again, I’m gonna let everyone make their own connections to understanding the symbolism and the connections talking about. Oh, anyway, there’s a lot there. So um I think that it is an important chapter for us to spend a lot of time pondering and considering I’m going to go on now to second me by 19. Um Again, the very familiar part first that you will really understand, especially since this is being released in December for and to us, a child is born and to us, a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace, of the increase of his government and peace. There is no end upon throne of David and upon the kingdom to um and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth, even forever the zeal of the Lord of Hosts, he he will the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. But if we continue beyond just what we’re very familiar with going to verse eight, the Lord sent his word unto Jacob and it hath lighted upon Israel and all the people shall know even Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, the bricks are fallen down but we will build with hewn stones. The sycamores are cut down but we will change them into cedars. The Lord warns and prophecies, woes and cursing. In the next several verses going down to 13 for the people turneth not unto him that smite them neither do they seek the Lord of hosts. We don’t see the symbols that He, that God sends us and seek to understand what they mean and what they might be calling us to. Instead, we don’t turn to them. Therefore, will the Lord cut off from Israel head and tail branch and rush in one day. The ancient He is the head and the prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail for the leaders of this people cause them to err and there they our lead of them are destroyed and it goes on from there. I do think it’s important to recognize the possibility that the Lord sends warnings, right? Fallen bricks or even more profoundly a fallen trumpet. But we don’t hearken. We don’t heed the warning instead in the power of our own hands and in our own strength, despite all the incredible symbolism that should make it under unmistakable and it should be unmistakably in front of our faces, right? And, and it’s inescapable, we ignore it. We just, just as we ignore the scriptures and instead declare that we will build a building so strong that nothing, no wind, no earthquake can bring it down. I I think that this is something we need to at least as individuals pay attention to. I know it is all done with the best of intentions, as I said. But that doesn’t change the fact that it seems that we are saying that no matter what God does. It can’t bring down our temple, our narrative, our idol, our kingdom, right? Even if we are ignoring the foundation of sand or the building with no solid foundation, we it is going to stand. And um I do not think that people are necessarily doing this knowingly. I just hope that that it’s ok to point it out, right? Because I think it needs to be pointed out. So um thinking of this building made to from how it looks to me now made to overcome any possible act of God, I can’t help but be reminded of other buildings that man made to be independent of God, other towers, right? Genesis 11 3 and four. And they said one to another, go to let us make brick and burn them thoroughly, make them really strong and they had brick for stone and slime, they had for mortar and they said go to let us build up, build up, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven and let us make us a name that we may be scattered abroad, all abroad upon all the face of the whole earth that didn’t work out either. And I read earlier in the scriptures, I read about Isaiah, the symbolism of it, of towers, right? And I just wanna point this out just to say this isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon. This isn’t something that just started happening now, right? This isn’t all brand new symbolism. I think that the things that are happening right now with Angel Maroni and with the foundation, you know, the theme of this podcast that is all relevant to us right now pertinent right now. But I think that this has been growing and growing for many, many decades. And so it isn’t a new phenomenon. Let me just show that we have a history of building towers that may be symbolically important. So scripturally, it seems to me that s towers seem to be um symbols of perhaps institutional pride, right? So the church office building is a huge tower that physically reveals possibly much about the church. It is 420 ft tall, exactly twice as tall as the 200 10 ft temple. And it’s nearly four times as big. It literally towers even over the temple. And so the the temple is 253 square feet. The church office building, I had to call to get this information. It’s not available online. It’s 950,980 square feet. So nearly four times as big as the temple. And that seems to tell us something about the structure of the church, perhaps how big the um administration is, right? And so most people, this is another tower that I just learned about that. I don’t think most people knew about. Most people know about the City Creek Project and some people had very strong feelings about that. But from what I have seen, I don’t think most people know about the new tower that the church just built last year. It’s called 95 State at City Creek. I just wanted to show you these pictures of this new tower that has been built. It’s the third tallest building in Salt Lake. I actually learned about it when I was researching for, um, I think it was part one, part two, about the early um buildings in Salt Lake that were finished before the temple. I learned about the social hall because of this building because it was built on the same, um, spot where the social hall that was finished in 1853 was built. And it’s fun. We actually, I actually got to go to this building, um, last weekend when we were in Salt Lake for my anniversary. Well, I guess last weekend before I’m recording this, this will be released a few weeks after I’m recording it. But it was interesting to read how, um, they had very expensive dinners at that social hall. I think it was like $5 a couple. There were some plaques you could read in this new 95 state building. And, um, they served bear steak, which I thought was really interesting. It doesn’t mean steak without anything on it. It means steak taken from a bear right from one of the local bears. So, so I wonder if that would be an interesting thing for them to consider doing at 95 state to keep it, you know, to, to go back to our heritage anyway. That was just an interesting part. But as always, please understand, I, I do not want to be hard on our leaders. That is not my intention. They were all raised up in this system that they are now the heads of and I, I don’t know that if I were in their shoes, I would be able to do anything different. I’m just really thankful that I’m not in their shoes. And so I, I do just, you know, to let every possibility be on the table. It could be possible that they are in fact doing exactly what God wants them to do, which is what a lot of members would believe and would claim. And so, you know, God commanded Noah to build an ark and prepare for the flood. And we are taught, if you’re prepared, you shall not fear. So it could be possible that this renovation and the um other building that the church is doing is actually Godly preparation. It’s possible that um yeah, that, that, that, that they are inspired to do this and God wants them to. So I think that people just each need to individually prayerfully consider which category they think this renovation fits in Godly preparation or man’s efforts to control and overcome anything that God could do. Right? I, I one clue that sways me is what we talked about in the previous episodes. Joseph’s explanation, that God must explicitly command the building of a temple and give direct instructions of how it is to be built in order for it to be God’s temple. And um Brigham Young made it clear that this temple was not commanded by revelation. He the Yankee guesser knew it needed to be built. And um so he built it right. And um it, so it could be possible that even though this was originally built, it seems somewhat independent of revelation from God. And on a sandy sandy foundation, this extreme effort to make it impervious to any potential um natural disaster or act of God could be the result of revelation, not just men’s logic. And um you know, and, and it’s, it’s, it’s possible that um I mean, God could tell them to do this because they’re able to do it because they have enough wealth and um power to accomplish it. But um I, I anyway, I, I do actually hope that that might be the case. I’m always like hoping that we are being inspired in everything that we are doing. But I have to say that from all of the talks that I’ve read and listened to and all of the videos that I’ve watched. I haven’t heard anything along those lines. I, I have heard a lot of this temple needs to stand, but I haven’t heard any claim that, you know, God came to me or I feel like, like I haven’t heard any claims of any specific revelation. Um Just, just they kind of insert that this is being overseen by the direct guidance of the first presidency, right? And so anyway, so, so everyone just needs to prayerfully decide what this might mean if anything, all, all of the things we’ve been talking about and what it might mean to them in individually. I don’t, I am not claiming to tell anybody anything about their own relationship to the church, their own relationship to God, their own relationship to temples like us, hopefully their own relationship to God. Because I really, I think it’s valuable to have a relationship with God, independent of temples and the church and have God tell us the value of temples and the church in our lives. That’s kind of how I hope the connections go, not the other way, not that we go through temples and the church to get to God. So I know that this has been a little bit long. There’s just one more thing I want to point out that I again, find potentially telling and maybe symbolically important in every single announcement and talk about the temple renovation. It was clearly stated that the project would take four years. The temple would shut down December 29th of 2019 of 2019 and the renovation would begin January 2020 the temple would reopen sometime in 2024 with a big um new open house, which I do think sounds exciting. There’s never been a big Salt Lake Temple open house, right? So people could come see the Salt Lake Temple and the new version of the Salt Lake Temple. So that was supposed to happen sometime in 2024 with the project taking around four years. It sounds like a little less than four years. This was stated multiple times by President Nelson and by everyone else who talked about it. So that has definitely changed. This very lengthy and extensive update was released by the church newsroom in December 2020 2021 that has definitely changed. I want to share this um December 2021 Temple Square renovation update and it gives a very lengthy um description of all the work that has been done. You can see it just goes on and on with pictures and explanations of the work and it’s not until, oh, I guess it goes on much longer than I even realized. Oh, we’re gonna see this picture of this guy in the um in that pipe. Oh, I scrolled up. We’re gonna talk about that going forward. So remember that as well. But um as we continue down, you will see that down here at the very bottom. It says the first presidency has released a statement on the new estimated completion date for the temple renovation project, the seismic strengthening of the Salt Lake temple and the extensive remodel of the temple and surrounding area are are sacred and significant undertakings. As the project has progressed, we have learned a great deal about the condition of the temple and its surrounding the ro the work is truly remarkable is being guided by the first presidency. Inspired modifications and additions to the project and scope have been made. So the temple and Temple square can serve many generations yet to come. It is anticipated that the temple and its surroundings will be completed in 2025. So they just added a year on to the project. We look forward to welcoming the world at that time to visit tour and learn about this sacred temple and the church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints. OK. So already there’s a big delay, right? That was announced in 2021 and as we go forward, we can learn, I had to do some digging to try to learn more about it. There was this article in the Tribune that didn’t give a lot of it. More information. They didn’t hold a press conference this time. It was just kind of actually buried down there at the bottom of the update. But um in that interview, I talked about with Andy Kirby and Brent Roberts who both are heads of this project. They shared some interesting information in explaining the delays. There were some mentions of the flu that shall not be named, but that actually very clearly wasn’t the problem. They actually say that th those supply chain problems didn’t slow them down as much because they have conveniently prep purchased most most of the materials in advance, which seems extremely for fortunate, especially considering that shutdown happened less than three months into this project, right? They started January 2020 we were shut down by the middle of March. So, um and you know, also the workers on the, the renovation was determined to be essential work. And so it was allowed to continue and the workers weren’t stay, is forced to stay home. So, again, I’m going into this topic more than I meant to. But, but I’m still trying to understand how any of that makes sense how temple renovation was essential, but church and school were completely dispensable and all sorts of medical procedures had to be put off indefinitely. And, uh, anyway, everyone else’s lives, you know, whatever, for some reason, the temple must go on. So, ok, back on topic, I just didn’t understand that, but they make it clear in this interview and elsewhere that the real problem was the construction of the temple was that the construction of the temple foundation was far more shoddily done than they had anticipated. So I’ll quote, Brent Roberts said, it seems like every week we had what we call unforeseen circumstances. I think that means they just kept having nasty surprise after nasty surprise. He talks about referring to Truman O Angels architects, which he says were actually magnificent for the time period. They were done. But this is a quote. Unfortunately, the builders didn’t build it the way he drew it. We assumed that they build it close to that way and they didn’t. So they are constantly having to adjust, right? They’re, they’re like literally digging out to see kind of what a mess this was and what a mess this has been. So one example of how badly the original foundation was done and how it’s negatively affecting the new renovation is the jack and bore system. So that’s explained a lot in the video. So if you’ve watched any of those, this will make a lot more sense, but try to explain it really briefly. In short, the, the plan is to insert 96 huge steel pipes. They’re 4 ft in diameter. So it’s the one that guy was standing and that I told you to pay attention to, they’re an inch thick, the steel is an inch thick and they’re 40 ft long, I guess most or 40 ft long. Some are a little bit shorter than that. And those are being inserted under the foundation. So that’s the jack and board. So they’re supposed to be like, they’re supposed to have a big drill and auger that goes inside of the pipe and drills out as the pipe is pushed into place. So it’s jacked into place as it’s bored out. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But this is amazing what um I’m gonna quote, Andy Kirby said what he said, but we found large cobbles underneath the foundation of the temple that made it so that the alignment or the straight straightness of our insertion of those pipes was difficult. So we’re actually hand digging the soil. Ok. This is a huge deal because of the cobbles. In other words, that loose stone, the granite that was being thrown into the foundation and the sandstone, right? The shoddy construction, they have to do this.
[2:11:52] Voiceover: It’s one of the grittiest jobs in construction and one of the toughest we wanna get all that out. Push the pipe in for more than eight hours a day. Minor Dakota Hansen toils in virtual darkness, we have to go up there and dig it all out, knock it off with the air hammer and throw it back over our shoulder into that car. And he does it in the confines of a 4 ft diameter steel pipe underneath an estimated £187 million of stone.
[2:12:29] Michelle: So can you imagine instead of being able to bore with an auger which would be so much faster and easier. They need guys to get in those carts and do this eight hours a day for 96 pipes. He says they try to get 6 ft a day and they have to do 96 40 ft pipes to get this done and on top of everything else, it’s very dangerous. The biggest challenge is making sure that everything goes smoothly and nobody gets hurt. Ok. So, but amazingly, this wasn’t the only delay there now has been a second delay. Announced a second full year delay. You can see this says Temple Square renovation update, Salt Lake Temple’s estimated completion date amended to 2026. So we went from 2024 to 2025 and now we’re at 2026. Um Let’s see that this is what it says, unexpected challenges and setbacks move anticipated completion from previously announced 2025 date and again, while they might give lip service to the flu, that shall not be named because they can and to like they, they say the flu, they shall not be named and then the challenge of a seismic upgrade and then these unforeseen circumstances, unexpected challenges. Right. Right. And I think that the flu was already taken into account before they did the 2021 delay. The seismic upgrade was taken into account before they ever announced the project. That’s what the project is. Right. So really the only thing that makes sense is that third reason, the unexpected challenges. So let me read another quote, a final and formal complete date and Temple open house schedule will be determined and shared when feasible. So this announcement was made over eight months ago, probably over nine months ago. When this episode airs was made in March 2023. There have been several further. Well, at least one further update I’ve read no September, there might have been others but no new information has been shared about completion. So apparently there is still, it’s still not feasible to say an end date. There’s still no feasible end date. So the most recent update update that I said I read is September said a portion of Temple Square will be open January 2024. So a portion of the temple grounds will be open 2024. And um so that’s new. I didn’t remember reading that any. So maybe though my thought was maybe that’s kind of like a way to say, look, we opened in 2024 you know, maybe a way to kind of claim to have to some extent met that original 2024 deadline. I don’t know, but that’s what the situation is now, which is really just fascinating. So desiree news there, I found a deseret news article that provided some additional information. So I’ll share a little bit from this. This again is Andy Kirby and he again mentions a few other things. And as I said, it’s clear that the real problem is quote unforeseen conditions found in the excavation of the Pioneer Era Foundation. So he, he really explains it here in, you know, he’s still careful, but you definitely get a sense of the situation. He says excavating the foundation made it clear that more and more difficult work was necessary. We didn’t know the extent of the gaps and voids in the original foundation until we exposed. It says said George Bonnet, Director of Communications for the historic temple renovations. So it’s the Director of Communications, they’re talking to who has to pass the message along. There were design, there were design changes to reflect as we discovered conditions we couldn’t know existed before we exposed the foundation. Kirby said the issues related to the historic footings built from 1853 to 1858 we thought it would be a higher level of masonry. He said, so he’s basically saying we didn’t expect it to be this badly done as it was. We didn’t know the temple had this sandy of a foundation. And so he goes on to say the foundation’s condition didn’t allow for modern equipment to bore into it. So Jack and Bore became Jack and dig by hand, which is what I just explained that slowed us down. Kirby said, yeah, I’ll bet it did and it sounds like it’s still slowing them down. So even with the delays, things are not in the clear and you know, it seems that things have not been going all that. Well, as you read this article, the completion of the excavation removes most of the unexpected. But Kirby said, the rare and unique nature of the base isolation system that workers will begin to install in a few weeks is difficult to predict the plan is to complete it. By the New Year. Kirby said, I would say by the end of the year, I’d feel more comfortable. He said, smiling. So, wow, that’s interesting. And we’re almost to the end of this, of the year when that was supposed to be done. So I’m really curious to know, I guess I’m just reading those Isaiah scriptures in particular made me curious to know what is going to happen, right? If um like, I mean, we all know that construction problems, especially house renovations, let alone temple renovations can always have unforeseen problems. But I think that those are usually built in at least to some extent and these kind of massive delays don’t happen unless there are massive problems that were not anticipated. I think they thought the temple had a much more solid foundation, then it had and then then they have found it to have. I think that’s again. Oh my gosh, the truth shall be revealed from the house tops, right? The all the hidden things of darkness will be revealed. It’s just more of this revelation. Everything is coming out in the open, everything is being dug up, right? This is an amazing time and I find what God is doing to just be incredible and for me, at least impossible to ignore that even the temple foundation is being exposed and revealed and we are getting that truth to be able to see physically, the truth of the fact that all of this was built on a sandy foundation doctrinally and literally physically structurally. And so, um I, I do want to say I like another thing that we all know from construction projects is that these kinds of delays and problems also mean price increases, right? Sometimes a bigger delay can mean can raise the price even more than the initial, you know, just tacking on the extra time because you’re finding additional problems that require additional solutions. And I can’t imagine how much more it would cost to pay those minors to do that miserable, dangerous work inside of those tunnels compared to just having an augur do it, that would really, really raise the price. So I think it’s fair to assume that since this four year project is now a six year project, if it was a $2 trillion project, that it’s now at least a $3 trillion project, right? We have to add that extra 50% on to what the um time and the price tag would be. I guess we’ll probably never know the cost unless there’s someone that works though that releases it or unless the church decides to release it. So this investment is, I mean, this whole situation is getting more and more interesting and I really am curious to see what will happen. So I’m not, I am certainly not making any predictions and heaven forbid prophesying. I um I do think that in light of the scriptures that we said, I, I just have to wonder what is going to end up happening. I’m curious to see whether this project will be successful and we will have successfully completed. Um But when it is successfully completed, if we will end up with a remarkable and indestructible manmade structure, maybe somewhat akin to an unsinkable ship, right? That’s kind of what it sounds like we’re doing. Um Again, like with so many things I do, I feel like I’m on the edge of edge of my seat waiting to see what the Lord is going to do next. And so with all of this, I just have one final thought that just was the thought I kept having while I was doing this entire episode, the problematic foundation of Brigham’s Salt Lake Temple, right? The that it does indeed seem to be profoundly symbolically relevant. And I love that they are digging down to the foundation and at this point actually carefully digging it out by hand to see what is there, to see what is solid and what is filled with pebbles and what they need to do about it. And that, that work that they are doing with the physical structure of the temple is exactly what I feel like I and others, all of us engaged in this are doing doctrinally and scripturally. I feel like we are getting down and doing that hard work of excavation to get in and see what in our foundations is rock solid and what is sandy and filled with chipped pieces of granite and sandstone and rubble like they talked about, you know, what is it? We, we are doing that careful work to see what should be kept and what should be thrown out. I um I just can’t help but desperately wish that the church would undertake the same process doctrinally that they are to some extent pursuing physically. I, I think that I, you know, physically, I do think they are discovering what the foundation of the temple actually is. I wish that instead of just trying to cement it in and make it into something, it’s not, you know, I kind of wish we would just get in there, clean it out and go. Whoa, that was a big mess. Now let’s build it back. I don’t want to use the term build back better. But now let’s, you know, make a solid foundation that we can build on that. We don’t have to worry about that. We don’t have to keep shoring up and pretending it’s something that’s not and claiming that it’s rock solid when it’s really just a big old sandy mess. Right? I do kind of wish that that’s what the church we’re doing physically, but I wish they would engage in that same process doctrinally. Right? And I feel like the symbolism is so important to me because doctrinally that’s what we are doing. We are down there doing that excavation. And my feeling is that there’s just this attempt to sort of cement over the top of it, right? With all of these bad narratives, some that Whitney and I talked about and more that are just showing up all over the place all the time. It’s like let’s cement over that Sandy Foundation with these bad narratives and pretend that everything is fine. And I just feel like that is not going to work, that is not ever going to work the the church. Like people are still just leaving like crazy. Someone was just telling the entire families that have left from the grandparents down to the grandchildren and everybody in between between all the brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins, the entire families of like the most stalwart church members are leaving and I just find it to be heartbreaking. I do not want that to be what happens and what people feel like it has to happen. I want us to be able to instead get in there doctorly just like I think we could do with the temple and go. Whoa, that’s a big sandy mess. OK, let’s build it back better. What do we have that bedrock? What can we start with and build from there? And I so thankful that at least as individuals we each can do that on our own with the help and direction of the Lord, with the support and um guidance of one another, right? We are all in there doing that work and man, it’s good work. I love it. I feel like if the church would do that instead of having this big cemented sandy mess that people could just tell is not right. I feel like if we would do that, it would be so beautiful to say, hey, guess what, Brigham Young, in addition to these other things that got wrong and he got this a little wrong too. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna dig it out. We don’t have all the answers yet, but we are seeking and we know that God will bring forth the answers because God promises not and you shall receive right? We are all doing that as individuals, man. If the church did that, what a beautiful invitation, would that be to all of us? I think it would be profound and so just magnetically inviting. That’s what I would love to see happen. I find so much. I think that’s why I wanted to go into depth on this renovation project because it is so directly tied to the doctrinal renovation project that so many of us are involved in, in our own lives and you know, as we seek to the scriptures. So I, I hope that this information has been valuable to you. I really, I’m so glad that I’m engaged in this work. I’m so glad that so many of you are engaged in this work. I hope that we will continue and no matter what, what the current leaders of the church do, we are engaged in this work and we can keep praying for them, keep doing our best to support them and keep hoping that at some point that this is the direction we will go. I was really struck by this quote from Ben Elder Nelson. He gave a talk called How Firm Our Foundation. And he gave several points of what he believed to be the foundational doctrines of the church. And he said, with such a foundation, this church will not be moved from his place. That really made me think. I don’t know exactly what that means, being moved from its place. But um but, but I like the idea and um it really made me think, I, with the current Sandy Foundation that we have as a church at this point. I don’t, I don’t personally know that that’s true. Like this church build on the foundation that still has polygamy and other structures that Brigham established power structures and hierarchies. And you know, with, with, with, with that still as part of our foundation. I don’t know that that feels true to me. I don’t know that it’s true yet. But with all of my heart, I believe that it could be and that is my prayer. So thank you for joining me and I will see you next time.
