Doctrine and Covenants Lesson #18 "Establish a House of God"

TEMPLE BUILDING IN THE LATTER DAYS

 

This painting by the amazing Walter Rane is from JosephSmith.net.

The sacrifices of the early Saints to build their first temples are legendary.  Here are examples of just a few.

VILATE KIMBALL

“Our women were engaged in knitting and spinning, in order to clothe those who were laboring at the building.  And the Lord only knows the scenes of poverty, and tribulation and distress, which we all passed through to accomplish it.  My wife would toil all summer.  She took 100 pounds of wool to spin on shares which, with the assistance of a girl, she spun, in order to furnish clothing for those engaged in building the temple.  And although she had the privilege of keeping half the quantity of wool for herself, as her recompense for her labor, she did not reserve even so much as would make a pair of stockings.  She spun and wove and got the cloth dressed and cut and made up into garments, and gave them to the laborers.  Almost all the sisters in Kirtland labored in knitting, sewing, spinning, etc, for the same purpose, while we went up to Missouri” (Heber C. Kimball quoted in Kelly, Latter-day History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, p. 163).

JOHN TANNER

Sometimes it’s easier to give when you don’t have very much to lose.  When a man has a lot of wealth, sometimes he tends to define himself by it and cling to it like a lifeboat.  But not John Tanner.

John Tanner was a wealthy convert.  He had outlived two wives, and then married a third (having a total of 21 children!) when the missionaries found him.  His infected leg was healed by the missionaries, and the next day he was baptized.  He committed to help the church and sustain the prophet.  He was so wealthy that he used six wagons to move his family from New York to Kirtland, and provided ten more for other church members.

The day after his arrival in Kirtland in early 1835, he met with Joseph Smith and the high council and lent them $2,000 to pay off the mortgage on the temple property, plus another $13,000 for other purposes.  He contributed to the temple building fund, and he signed a $30,000 note for merchandise to help Saints move to Kirtland.  (Whoa!  $30,000 in 1835!!!)

When he moved his family from Kirtland to gather with the saints in Missouri three years later, he had to borrow a wagon.  He had very little money left.  He endured all the trials of Missouri and Illnois.  Despite his humble circumstances, a few months before Joseph Smith was killed, “John returned the $2,000 noted signed in Kirtland as a gift to the Prophet and was blessed by Joseph that he and his posterity would never beg for bread.”

He provided food and help to the saints as they left Nauvoo, arriving in Salt Lake City himself in 1848.  He died two years later, a faithful and humble friend to the end (Garr, Cannon and Cowan, Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, p. 1219-1220).

REYNOLDS CAHOON

Reynolds Cahoon had left Kirtland to serve a mission to Missouri.  After his release, he asked whether he could return to Missouri, to “Zion.”  The answer given was no, he was needed to serve on the Kirtland Temple building committee (D&C 94:14-15).  He fulfilled that position well.

Later his family was chased out of Kirtland with the rest of the saints, and then chased out of Missouri, finally settling in Nauvoo.  Again Brother Cahoon was called to the temple building committee, a calling which scared the daylights out of him.  “I think I never was placed in so critical a position since I was born,” he said.

He moved to Salt Lake City with the saints and died there in 1861.  His obituary in the Deseret News called him, “a true friend to the prophet of God while he was living, full of integrity and love for the truth and always acted cheerfully the part assigned him in the great work of the last Days.”  (Susan Easton Black, Who’s Who in the Doctrine and Covenants, p. 46-48)

SACRIFICE REWARDED

It took the saints 3 years to build the Kirtland Temple, and they had to leave it behind after only two years of service, but they took with them the blessings they had received through sacrificing to build the temple and through their participation in the temple after it was built.  The physical body of the temple decayed (later to be restored) but the spirit of the temple moved on with the saints and is still with us today.

BECOMING A TEMPLE PEOPLE

President Howard W. Hunter encouraged us to become “a temple people.”  Have you had to make any sacrifices to become "a temple person?"  

Since his prophetic call, temple building has expanded hugely.  141 temples are operating today, with 13 under construction, and 16 more announced.  That will bring the total to 160.

I hold the copyright to this picture of the Logan Temple,
but feel free to use it for teaching purposes.

Depending on whether you want to get more spiritual and personal, or whether you want to just have a fun class period, you can either ask class members which temple has a special place in their heart and why, or you can use this link for a temple trivia game from LDS Living, or this one for the LDSChurchTemples.  

TEMPLE MINI-QUIZ

How many temples are there on the earth? As of May 2017, the answer is 155 in operation, 14 under construction, and 13 announced, for a total of 182. You can find current statistics here.

This cute little temple, not quite as big as the stake center next door to it, was the first of the tiny temples commissioned by President Hinckley to serve remote areas.  Where is it?

 

                Monticello, Utah.  

Photo from LDSChurchTemples.com.

This gorgeous mountainside temple is decorated with a sego lily theme. Where is it?

Draper, Utah.  
Photo by Ryan Houston posted on Google Earth. 

This is the northernmost temple in the world. Where is it?

Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Photo from LDSTemples.com

WHICH NEW TEMPLES WILL BE DEDICATED IN 2017?

Cedar City, Utah

Dedication: December 10, 2017

Photo from LDSChurchTemples.com

 Meridian, Idaho
Dedication: November 19, 2017
Photo from LDSChurchTemples.com

Tucson, Arizona

Dedication: August 13, 2017

Photo from LDSChurchTemples.com

Paris, France
Dedication: May 21, 2017
Photo from ldschurchtemples.com