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On 24 November 2022 the Church placed an Angel Moroni Statue atop the Salta Argentina Temple. This event was significant because, even though there are 55 Temples currently under construction and an additional 9 temples that have had a render released, none of them are slated to receive a Statue unless they already have it. 35 of the temples under construction don’t have completed spires yet, either, and none of them are slated to receive a statue at this point.
This ends an era. With few exceptions, every temple built in the last 40 years has had the statue.
Because of this, I have taken the opportunity to make a definitive, final version of a couple of my long-running projects.
Know Your Moroni. A Free E-Book
My e-book about the Angel Statue history and usage is finally finished. Any temple that did not have a render released at the time of publishing has been removed to simplify the book over all, though they are mentioned briefly. Articles and stories are updated, including a mention of the final statue placement.
Now, there still may be small updates for grammar, phrasing, typos and the like, but there will not be another major edition of this volume.
The Book is still rather large, so I have once a gain broken it down into 2 parts. Part one is Bios, statue info, stories and myths. Part 2 is all the charts, graphs and lists.
The biggest change this time around, however, is that I have nearly completed my efforts to put the whole book into an online readable format, for those who have no desire to download. That can be found here:
Of an even more satisfying is what will be the final major update to My Moroni Direction infographic. I’m sure there are small errors and things I have forgotten, stuff I will need to change, but for the most part, this is now done. It will not be updated as new renders are released.
Should the Church once again commence the practice of adding statues to temples, even retroactively, It will, at this point, constitute a whole new Volume of my book, rather than an update to the existing. It may mean the same thing for the infographic as well. I haven’t decided on that one yet.
It’s been a long time coming for this one, and I want to start with a disclaimer:
I reserve the right to be wrong.
See, this edition of the infographic is all temples sorted by height. The thing is, the Church does not always release ad official height for a temple. And, sometimes when they do, the official number can be reported wrong to the public, usually due to an error reading the plans.
So, this infographic features an awful lot of guesswork based upon my models and my estimations.
Also I should mention, occasionally you will see a model that looks significantly taller or shorter than it’s neighbors, or just doesn’t quite line up. Usually, this is an illusion caused by the images having been rendered in perspective. Because of that, spires towards the middle or back of a temple will often look taller than those in the front.
This infographic is the third on the page, at the bottom.
This is the infographic from the series that is closest in content to the original. This is a Chronological list by the original dedication date. You might notice that this is a cleaner look than my original infographic. I am saving all those details for something else I have planned, though that one may take longer than I had hopped.
In the meantime, enjoy the new infographic, second one down on the page, under the heading “Chronologically.”
I have a new infographic for you. The first in a new series, based off of my old infographic I Love To See The Temple. This new series will give you new ways to see and compare the temple.
To start things, off, we have ILTSTT :Alphabetically.
Quick update, 2/20/2024: The church announced to day that, upon reopening after the pending renovation, the name of the temple will be Provo Utah Rock Canyon Temple.
If you are not one that pays attention to temple happenings, you might have missed that the Church released an official render for the new Provo Utah Temple. Which, in case you REALLY have not been paying attention, is the old Provo Utah Temple. At the close of the October 2021 General Conference, Church President Russell M. Nelson announced the Provo Utah Temple would be “reconstructed” once the Orem Utah Temple completes construction.
The Orem Utah Temple currently has about a year or so left in construction. That’s conjecture, not inside information.
Hardly was the news of a new exterior look for the temple released, then a petition was started to preserve the exterior of the original temple. The petition hopes that, like the one started to preserve the much older Manti Temple, they can change the mind of those in charge of the project, and preserve at least the unique exterior. Their reasons for the preservation are the temple’s uniqueness, ant the symbolism included in the exterior design.
Now, I have my own opinions on the temple, which I will mention briefly later, but I have begun to hear from various sources that the temple structure might be in much worse condition than that of the original Ogden Utah Temple, the Provo Temple’s former sister temple. The problems with the Ogden temple were so severe, that the necessary fixes required demolishing around 3/4 of the temple’s original structure. The new temple was then built up from there in a floor plan that was only partly similar to the original. If my sources, some of which I feel pretty valid, are correct, perhaps saving the existing structure is not possible at all.
True or not, however, I feel like there is a bit of irony in trying to preserve this temple’s exterior. Why? Well, most of that comes down to the temple’s architect: Emil Fetzer.
On Emil Fetzer
Emil Fetzer was a modernist in his architectural views. What does this mean? Well, for one, he looked to use modern materials. He used shapes that were popular and trendy.
Modernism is all about the here and now. What is current, what is new. But more important to an understanding of what is Modernism, is what it is not. It’s not about Preservation. It’s not about Restoration. Furthermore, it references History only in so far as it is something to be learned from, and not repeated.
So you are now aware that there is a petition to preserve the Provo Temple exterior. And oh, how Ironic it is. We are literally talking about preserving the architectural design of an Architect who did not believe in preservation.
Don’t believe me? Perhaps Emil was only partially modernist? Perhaps he would not want his design removed and replaced? I’m not so sure.
Consider some other temple projects Emil was involved in.
Laie Hawaii
Emil Fetzer renovated the Laie Hawaii Temple. His additions are all on one side of the temple, breaking up 50+ years of symmetrical temple additions.
Laie Hawaii Temple in 1919 (upper left,) 1949 (upper right) and 1963, (center.) The Fetzer additions to the temple can be seen in the bottom center image.
His plan removed the historic progression from the rooms, and covered up the murals, effectively removing them from the temple until a 2010 renovation brought them back.I have received information that the murals may have been covered at a later date. I will continue to research this point.
Mesa Arizona
Emil Fetzer renovated the Mesa Arizona Temple, again, converting the historic rooms from progression to stationary presentation. As with Laie, the Mesa Temple additions were all on one side, the south this time. Like Liae, nearly 50 years of symmetry in the design is now gone.
The Mesa Arizona Temple in 1927 (upper left,) after the enclosure of the east and south courtyards (upper center,) and the enclosure of the north courtyard (upper right.) Emil Fetzer’s addition can be seen bottom center.
Again, the historic murals are gone at his instruction. Unlike Laie, where they were covered, he had them removed completely, and their spaces covered with a new modern vinyl coating instead. So little care was taken with their removal, that when the decision was made to return the murals to the temple a couple of decades later, only enough of the originals could be salvaged for one wall in each room. Fetzer’s annex, while covered with windows on the outside, has no actual windows in it. As a modernist, Fetzer liked to have full control over the interior lighting.
Idaho Falls Idaho
There is some indication that Emil Fetzer worked with his brother Henry Fetzer on the 1972 renovation of the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple, which again added to just one side of the temple, breaking up the original symmetry. Emil was Church architect at that time, and according to the Church History Library records the addition was designed by Fetzer and Fetzer architectural firm, Henry’s firm.
The original Idaho Temple, left, and the 1972 north side addition on the right. (Note, the entrance enclosure was done much earlier, in the 1950s/60s.
Update: I have since confirmed that Emil was in Charge of the renovation from the church’s side of things, as he was the Church Architecct at the time.[1]”Five Temples to be Renovated,” Deseret News, Church, 28 October 1972, p4.
St. George Utah
Emil Fetzer was the architect who had the progressive rooms converted to stationary at St. George. Again, all the murals and trim work installed in the rooms in 1937, 35 years earlier, were removed and replaced with modern trims and styles. Fetzer removed the existing annex, and replaced it with a larger, more modern design. As with the Mesa annex, most of the windows on the outside of the annex are fake, Fetzer wanting to control the interior light.
Logan Utah
The project that gave Fetzer a bad name in the minds of many, though, was Logan Utah Temple. The temple had been designed in a way that was just unworkable. It had to be changed. Fetzer gutted the temple, a sad necessity, and rebuilt the interior with all new level floors inside. But, when he decorated the interior, he blacked out all the historic windows, from the inside, again to control the light. He finished the temple with modern trims, modern materials, and nothing that paid homage to the original ornamentation and decoration. In fact, the Baptistry is almost an exact replica of the Baptistries he built into the Provo and Ogden Temples, right down to a recast of the same font and oxen.
So, changing the Provo Temple completely is more in line with the spirit of Fetzer’s work than preserving the temple would be. One could even make the argument he would approve of the changes, as the new design is more modern.
On Provo Temple and Symbolism
Much has been made over the years of the symbolism in the exterior design of the Provo Temple, With the temple base representing the biblical pillar of cloud that led the Children of Israel by day, and the bronze/gold spire representing the pillar of fire that similarly led the children by night.
We talked earlier about what a modernist architect is not. Do you know what else Fetzer did not believe in? Symbolism in his designs. The fact that the temple is a temple is all it needed to be important.
Don’t believe me again? Look at Fetzer’s other designs: Sao Paulo Brazil, Tokyo Japan, Seattle Washington, Jordan RiverAtlanta Georgia, Nuku’alofa Tonga, Apia Samoa (original), Santiago Chile, Sydney Australia, Freiberg Germany… Not a bit of symbolism in the designs. The only design that even comes close to looking like it has symbolism, is the Mexico City Temple, which is a design meant to mimic Mayan and Aztec styles. But that is a style, not a symbol.
In truth, Fetzers first designs for Atlanta and the Pacific temples did not even include a spire, which could at a bit of a stretch be called a symbol or reminder to look heavenward.
The cloud symbolism, intended or otherwise, is long gone anyway. In 2003, the Church painted the golden colored spire white, and added an Angel Moroni Statue. Since that time, there has been no pillar of fire symbolism to be seen.
I have researched the Provo/Ogden symbolism with the staff of the Church History Library assisting. We found NOTHING that indicates Fetzer ever thought anything of the style being representative of anything at all. There has been no indication the symbolism was intentional.
On the other hand….
I was able to track down one individual who interviewed Fetzer before he passed away. When she mentioned she liked the two pillar symbolism of the Provo Temple design, he apparently had little patience for the idea himself, and said that it was not his intention for the design to symbolize that.
So here is something to consider:
If Fetzer did not believe in preservation, and if he intended no symbolism, does that make the existing style of the temple less worth preserving? No change? More worth preserving because so many people embraced the symbolism they saw in the design?
My thoughts on the change
I very much love the original temple, with the golden spire. It was the first temple I ever attended, and it was special to me for years before my appreciation for temples in general fully formed. Some of the magic, so to speak, of that temple went away when the spire was painted white. For me, it’s already not that same temple. I, for one, am okay with the change, but that’s because I am a pragmatist.
The temples are our stewardship, and part of that stewardship means ensuring the temple can fulfill its primary properly. Sometimes, as in the case of the Current changes to Salt Lake and Emil Fetzer’s renovation of Logan Utah Temple, that means drastic changes. And while I may not always be a fan of the way such changes and modifications occur, I understand that we are still learning and growing, both in our understanding of how to build temples, and how to care for them.
So, I do like the proposed design, almost as much as I liked the original look. But I do understand that there are changes that must be made, and that I might not actually ever be informed of the reasons those changes are necessary. So, bring on the future, whatever it may hold.
Last thoughts: Provo Temple’s Efficiency
Now, if all you came for was an opinion piece on the temple’s renovation, you can stop reading now. The rest of this is just informational.
I keep hearing much said about the Provo Temple’s efficiency. It is often said with a slight edge of awe. I usually find that most people don’t actually know what that efficiency entailed, or mis-assign the trait to another aspect of the temple. So for clarity’s sake, I would like to talk about what does make the current floor plan such a groundbreaking design.
The round design
The one thing people know about the floor plan is that it is round. Or somewhat round. Or sort of Oval. And this is the feature often touted as being so efficient. It’s not.
There is a story told in the 1972 Ensign about how the design was made efficient through inspiration while on an airplane flight. The story is worth a read, so go check it out:
That article also happens to be the source of the much quoted statistic that, at one point (1966), 52% of all ordinances were done in just three temples (out of 13 total.)
Should you choose to read the article, you will realize that the famous inspiration was over how to lay out the rooms, and not the use of what Brother Fetzer called the “Danish Ellipse.” The elipse is what gives the temple it’s great rounded corners. But the layout give the efficient flow.
You see, on that flight, Brother Fetzer and his companion, Fred Baker, realized that they could greatly increase the traffic flow through the endowment rooms by arranging them 3 on one side of the celestial room, and three on the other. Oakland already used a mirrored approach, with one room to either side. The epiphany came in giving each side of the celestial room a shared ordinance space, known as the veil space, that spanned across all 3 rooms. As long as ordinance start times were staggered, so that the first session started on one side (just for example’s sake, let’s say an east side room,) and the next session was held on the opposite side (in a west side room,) then when it came time to use the veil space, each room could in turn use the whole length of the space without running up against traffic coming from other rooms.
This layout worked extremely well. So much so that in the first month of operation, each of these two temples was apparently able to do more endowment ordinances by itself, than the 4 busiest temples in the world at that time combined.
If you have ever done an endowment ordinance in that temple, however, you will remember that, while sitting in your instruction session, you can plainly hear the other sessions using the veil space. It was efficient, but kind of noisy!
That efficiency has since been adapted to most temples, (and even been improved upon in most modern temples.) Fetzer himself used it in Jordan River, Seattle, Mexico City and Atlanta, those designs big enough to have at least 2 rooms aside. Indeed, the Jordan River Temple floor plan is very much a larger version of the Ogden/Provo plan. As such, any renovation that changes the current layout of those rooms is not going to permanently destroy the lesson in efficiency learned there.
I have been working on this feverishly for a long time now. Most of this year so far to be sure. This project and one coming in November are solely responsible for my lack of videos this year.
September 27 – October 3 of this year, the week after next, we will be studying the dedication of the Kirtland Ohio Temple in the ‘Come Follow Me’ program. So, as I have done with Independence Missouri Temple, I am just finishing work on a 360° virtual tour of the Kirtland Ohio Temple as it would have looked at the time it was dedicated.
The video will be published this coming Wednesday, 22 September, around 6:00 PM MST, so it will be available in time for the following weeks Spread the news, and Subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can get notified when it goes live!
Dedicated in 1884, the Logan Utah Temple was the second temple to be built in the saint’s new home of Utah. Its predecessor, the temple in St. George had opened in 1877. That same year, the Church broke ground for the Logan Utah Temple. What would play out in St. George even as the walls rose for the Logan Temple exterior would have a profound effect on the Logan Temple’s design. But to understand how, we have to roll back to the beginning of the restoration.
What came before
Independence Missouri
The first temple announced by the Church was in Independence Missouri. Due to persecution and political strife, this temple never came to be, but detailed plans for the temple were sent to the members of the Church in that area giving us a fairly good idea of the planned layout.
The temple design comprised solely of 2 large Assembly Halls, one on the lower floor, and one on the upper floor. Pulpits would be placed at either end of each hall, with seating that allowed the assemblage to face either set of pulpits. Joseph’s letters to the members numbered the how many pews were to be built in each section. The pulpits were described in detail,, each end to have 9 pulpits, in rows of three, with each row raised higher than the one in front of it.
While the Temple in Independence was never built, The Members in Kirtland began the process of building a temple there almost immediately. The temple would be built after the same plan for Independence, with the addition of a large unused basement, and an attic for divided into separate classroom and office spaces.
When persecution would force the saints out of both Kirtland and Independence, they would eventually settle in Commerce Illinois, renaming it to Nauvoo. Once again a temple would be constructed, and as with Kirtland it would follow the plan for Independence Missouri.
Like Kirtland, Nauvoo would have a basement, now featuring a large baptismal font on the back of twelve oxen, explicitly dedicated for the newly revealed ordinance of proxy baptism for the dead.
The font is something we know for certain was not, could not have been on the Independence plan. The ordinance of proxy baptism in a temple had not been revealed at that point. It represents the first true departure from the Independence temple plan.
Another change to the Nauvoo understanding of what a temple should include was in the attic. Like Kirtland, Nauvoo was given attic office space. When the Endowment ceremony was revealed, along with the ordinance of sealing together of families, room was needed within the temple for the administration of those ordinances. Temporary space was laid out in the attic for both of those things. Curtains were used in the large center room to create endowment spaces, and one of the side offices was used to perform the sealing ordinance.
After construction commenced on the Salt Lake Temple, Brigham Young authorized construction on an house in the north west corner of temple square. Unlike the temples Brigham was intent on having built, this house would have no assembly hall, and existed solely for the administration of the temple ordinances. The remarkable thing about the endowment house was how little a resemblance it bore to Brigham’s plan for the Salt Lake and later St. George Temples, and how much it did look like what temples would become shortly after Brigham’s death.
The endowment house featured one or two steps up between each room, likely to represent upward progression in knowledge. There was then a large lift between floors near the end of the Ceremony, allowing the Endowment house to fit on a smaller footprint. The House started as just rooms for the Endowment, but eventually was expanded to include a font and support rooms.
Eventually the Saints would find themselves settling in what is now Utah in order to escape the still constant persecution. They would again build temples in their new home. While the first temple they started was to be in Salt Lake City, where the Church held it’s headquarters, the first temple they would complete would be a temple far south in St. George Utah.
In St. George, the temple again followed the same plan that had been set out for Independence Missouri, with an assembly hall above, and another below.
People love to mention that the St. George Temple was a copy of Nauvoo. This statement comes from the fact that the interior dimensions of the Assembly Hall is the same as the Nauvoo Temple. But upon further examination this temple is not as big a match as people presume. For one, there was no attic space at St. George.
Additionally, St. George was the first temple to have clearly defined spaces dedicated to administering the endowment. Unlike Nauvoo, these spaces were in the basement, around the font. As the ordinance would progress, they would move up into the lower Assembly hall where curtains were used in the lower assembly hall to divide that hall for additional endowment space.
St. George was exactly the temple Brigham Young planned to build inside the shell that was even then being built for Salt Lake.
It was the plan revealed by Joseph Smith, more or less. While Brigham acknowledged that the temple was to be used for the endowment and proxy ordinances, he felt it should still have the two halls, though acknowledging that both should be used for the ordinances of the priesthood.
After the work of administering ordinances began in the temple it became apparent that using curtains in the assembly hall as a method for performing the endowment ordinance is… sub optimal. It became apparent that the Lower Assembly Hall was not being used for Assembly. Or as a complete hall, for that matter. The upper Hall served the needs of priesthood meetings, and the nearby tabernacle served the needs of everything else.
Logan’s New Plan
So now we jump back up to Logan.
Brigham had passed on at this point. Like St. George, Logan also already had a tabernacle. It should come as no surprise that Truman O Angel Jr. would suggest eliminating the lower hall at Logan all together, and devoting that to something deliberately created for the ordinances. Especially when you consider that Brigham Young had already provided an alternate temple floor-plan in the form of the Endowment House.
Truman Angell Jr. likely figured there would be benefit to adapting his Father’s floor-plan for the Endowment house into a new floor-plan design for the bottom half of the Logan Temple, as his plan featured a rise in elevation between each room, much like the Endowment House.
Truman Jr. was a visionary. His plan was a good idea, adding extra symbolism and meaning to the endowment through the architecture of the Temple. The implementation was clever as well. The baptistry, placed right in the center of the temple, was given thick walls of the same stone as the exterior. This in essence turned the Baptistry into one large, hollow, support column for the floors and rooms surrounding it, as well as supporting the floors above it.
But he also was not as great an architect as his father. His implementation, while very clever, was problematic. His brilliant idea was in shifting the use of the space within a temple to focus on the ordinances. His method for doing so would become the temples Achilles Heel.
Ironically, The closest temple to Truman Sr.’s Endowment House floor-plan is the final layout that was given to the Salt Lake Temple. Salt Lake’s design was based off Logan, but with corrections to the design to fix the standing issues in the Logan plan.
Truman Angell Jr.’s plan would start off with a baptistry at ground level. For the endowment, you would immediately progress 4 feet up a flight of stairs into the room representing the creation of the world, the starting point for the ceremony. This stairway was about the width of 2 people abreast, as was the door at the top. So far the plan is not bad, but is not great for people with issues with climbing stairs.
From the Creation room, patrons would then move to a room representing the Garden of Eden. This was done by a pair of narrow staircases. Access to these stairways was right in the corners of the room, causing a bottleneck of people. Both staircases funneled up to a single doorway, again wide enough for one person at a time. This is the true failing in the design. The bottleneck at the bottom of the stairs is sort of manageable by having people move from their seats in an orderly fashion. While the same is true of the doorway, it still causes a delay while people wait for access to the door. This same problem arises when leaving the garden room to go into the Room representing the dreary world that Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden into. A similar staircase existed when leaving the World Room for the Terrestrial Room, thought his time the staircase was 7 feet high. To exit the Terrestrial Room , there was a single staircase, this time wide enough for at least two people, but once again it was 7 feet high.
And then there was the trip back down, for which the there were only staircases.
In 1949 an elevator was added to the outside of the temple. This elevator would take people from the ground floor, where the Baptistry is, to what was then known as the “B floor.” The World room was part of the B floor, and by using that lower door (under the stairs) in the world room you could get to the elevator, which could then take you up to the Celestial room or back down to the ground floor.
Unfortunately, for the endowment presentation, the elevator could not get you from the World Room to the Terrestrial Room. Going the other direction, having access from the ground floor to the World Room does not help with access for the first half of the presentation.
So from day one, this temple had issues in regards access. Forget disability access issues for a moment. The endowment Ceremony, as other temples came online, was taking 3 to 4 hours per presentation. At Logan, that a same ceremony was taking 4-5 hours. Plus, wait times to get into the session could also run as long as 4 hours. One could spend upwards of 9 hours in the temple for a single session, where other temples could get through 3 sessions in the same time. It was an experiment, and a very pretty one at that, but it was a failed experiment.
The Brave New World
Let’s jump forward from the 1884 dedication of the Logan Utah Temple and 1949 the 1949 renovation, all the way up to the early 1960s. The Church did a survey of temple usage, and they found that even though there were 13 temples in the world:
The truly remarkable thing about this is that Logan was actually one of those three. Even with the long delays into and through the Endowment Presentation.
Under direction of President McKay, the church researched what it would take to double the capacity of Logan and Manti Temples. The result of the study was that any renovation to the temple proper would require bringing each of the two temples up to current codes. Now, keep in mind there are no ADA laws at this point. This is just electrical, plumbing, fire suppression, and things like emergency exits. Bringing the temples up to code alone would be so prohibitively expensive, they suggested instead that it would be cheaper to build 2 new temples to take pressure off the Logan, Salt Lake, and Manti Temples.
And here, a miracle happened. The very first month Ogden was opened, more endowments were done in the new temple than in Salt Lake, Manti, Logan and St. George COMBINED. Just three of those four had been doing 52% of all endowments. So, the Ogden Temple increased the number of endowments being done in the world by more than 52%. Provo opened the next month, taking the total number of endowments worldwide to roughly 200% of what it had been before these two super efficient temples.
Provo took pressure of the Manti temple as was anticipated, and things there remained stable for decades.
Logan remained relatively unchanged from the opening of the Ogden Temple. By all accounts, it could still take up to 8 hours to get through 1 session, and the temple had volunteers on hand to carry disabled individuals from room to room as needed. But, with the miracle at Ogden and Provo, it was clear that things could not stay as they already were.
Enter the renovation
It was determined there was nothing to be done for it. Logan temple had to be fixed.
To this:
The process of creating a modern temple inside the shell of the original was done by removing a portion of the original interior shown here:
Initially about 2/3rds of the temple was removed. A new steel framework was constructed inside that portion of the shell, and tied to the original exterior walls:
This was all done in the name of increasing efficiency, however, the byproduct of all this was that by the time ADA laws were signed into law 20 years later, the Logan Utah Temple was already in compliance. No additional changes were to be made.
The temple was, by that time, on the National Register of Historic Places. The Register complained, very loudly, about the changes being made to the temple. The Church’s response was essentially that the building is still in use, was built for a specific use, and was not properly fulfilling that purpose.
And this is the critical Point. The True Sad Tale of the Logan Temple.
The temple was built for the purpose of administering the ordinances and covenants of God. While it could fulfill that function, it was not doing so to its best, intended potential.
In defense of Renovations
The Church remodels temples for many reasons. They have a system in place, and they know the age of every light switch, every outlet, every piece of furniture, every bit of plumbing and wiring, every piece of carpet.
And everything has an expiration date.
Everything is timed so that electrical items don’t become fire-hazards, and plumbing does not develop leaks. So that carpet does not look threadbare, and paint does not look dingy.
Most things are replaced during the annual closure for cleaning. When enough of the larger things need replacing, they will close and remodel the way they just did for Jordan River, and are currently doing for Washington DC and Mesa.
Sometimes there are other reasons for the remodel. Like the discovery of a fault line running right under the temple, combined with a high water table giving the same temple mold issues.
Sometimes the solution to the problems is so drastic, that it is easier to strip down to the core, and build something new from the remains.
Sometimes it’s just time to replace all the plumbing and electrical before it gets to be a potential hazard. In such a case, they will remove all the interior walls of the temple, replace what needs replacing, then put all the walls back in, in much the same place. The end result is a temple that looks completely unchanged from the way it was before, at least on the outside.
One common thing that tends to happen with all of these remodels is that the end result looks “lifted.” improved in such a way that it pulls our minds out of the mundane and takes us up to a higher place
It gives us a feeling of having drawn closer to god than it could have before the change
It inspires us and causes us to think of higher things.
The church makes an effort to ensure that the temple impresses our minds and our souls, lifting us above the here and now, to focus on things of eternity
Even when all those changes consist of is change in style.
A Lesson
There is the story, and here then, is the lesson.
Ye also are the temple of God.
Like the Logan Temple, we too are consecrated and set apart for specific purposes, and, like the Logan Temple, sometimes we also do a really bad job at fulfilling those purposes.
Like the temples, we can renovate ourselves as well, though with people we usually call that renovation repentance. We can renovate our lives all the time. Sometimes these are small renovations, like reading scriptures for a little longer, or spending more time listening during our prays. Sometimes, however, we find more serious flaws that require us to gut what is at our very core, and rebuild ourselves as something new.
This life, is designed for us to try and figure out the best way to become what we need to be. We experiment upon the word, we make attempts to do the right thing, and, as it sometimes does, when we fail, we renovate, and change who we are again.
