128 Operating Temples

Temple count reaches 128 on Sunday in Twin Falls, Idaho

By Rodger L. Hardy

Deseret News
Published: Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008

PROVO, Utah -- With the Twin Falls Temple of The Churtch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints being dedicated Sunday, the number of temples around the globe now number 128, said Richard O. Cowan, professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University.

With LDS temples dotting the earth the challenge of getting to a temple by traveling long distances is diminishing.

"The challenge now is to find the time to go," he said during his last Campus Education Week lecture Friday on "The House of the Lord Through the Ages."

Building the first temples was a sacrifice for early Latter-day Saints. The first was in Kirtland, Ohio, no longer owned by the church, followed by the Nauvoo Temple, destroyed after the church members moved west to the Salt Lake Valley. In settling Utah the pioneers built four temples: St. George, Logan, Manti and Salt Lake City.

The first temples built in the 20th century were the Hawaii, Alberta, Canada and Mesa, Ariz., temples. Moving outside the United States, the church built a temple in Switzerland and a carbon copy in New Zealand. The latter was remodeled to no longer match the Swiss temple and to add four presentation rooms, Cowan said. The church also remodeled the London Temple to also add four presentation rooms.

The Swiss Temple remains the only one with a balcony, he said.

At the time the church was moving from presenting the ordinance of the endowment from live to film. A floor of the Salt Lake Temple was remodeled into a movie studio to make the films, he said. A young audio visual expert was put in charge. His name was Gordon B. Hinckley, who later became the church's 15th president.

President Hinckley later became known as the temple-building president, dedicating some 80 temples, Cowan said. Under his administration temples became smaller, but the idea had already been considered and was not original with him, Cowan said.

The largest temple for many years was the Los Angeles Temple, with 190,000 square feet. Later the Salt Lake Temple was enlarged to more than 200,000 square feet, becoming the largest in size. It originally was 160,000 square feet.

Cowan called the Oakland (Calif.) Temple the "most spectacular." It overlooks the Bay Area and can be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. The temple was dedicated in 1964.

Forty years earlier LDS Church leader George Albert Smith met with two branch presidents who represented Oakland and San Francisco on church business. From his hotel room he looked out at the Oakland hills and foresaw a temple being built there, where it would become a beacon to the area, Cowan said.

In the 1970s during the oil crunch, the church started dimming the outside lights to save energy. According to rumor the Federal Aviation Administration asked the church to turn the lights back up to aid its pilots.

"That story isn't true," Cowan said, "but I will tell you what is true. The temple is a beacon, but more of a spiritual beacon."

For many years the Provo Temple was the most productive, even without BYU students and missionaries from the neighboring Missionary Training Center, he said. The temple has six presentation rooms and can start new sessions every 20 minutes.

Dedicated in 1972 with its not-so-identical twin, the Ogden Temple, the Provo Temple remained the most productive until the Mount Timpanogos Temple was built in 1997. Today the work done in both the Provo and Mt. Timpanogos temples exceeds what the Provo once did alone. Utah Valley has the largest Mormon population in the church and a large number of the members are faithful, Cowan said.

Other temples Cowan talked about included:

• The Washington, D.C., Temple, a monument to the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ with its six spires that mimic the Salt Lake Temple. At night the temple appears to be floating, Cowan said.
• The Sau Paolo Brazil Temple, built in 1978, the year the church began giving its priesthood to black male members. Many black members live in the region.
• The Tokyo Temple, built in 1980 and the first in Asia.
• The Mexico City Temple, built despite laws that all such buildings belong to the government and must be open to everyone. President Spencer W. Kimball met with the Mexican president to explain the church's position "and that hasn't been a problem," Cowan said. Today, 12 temples are in Mexico.
• The Atlanta Temple, built in 1983, was not to have a tower. That changed under President Kimball and since then church leaders decided to have statues of the Angel Moroni on all new and some older temples.
• The Frieberg Germany Temple, built to make it possible for East Germany members to have access to a temple under the Cold War. Dedicated in 1985, four years later the Berlin Wall, which had isolated East Germany, came down.
• New kinds of temples include the Hong Kong Temple, built where the mission office once stood as a highrise; the Manhattan Temple, also a highrise, and the Vernal Temple, created from an older stake center. The Copenhagen Denmark Temple was also created out of an older church building.
• Small temples include the Monticello Utah temple, which was the first; also the Redlands and Newport Beach temples in California and the Nauvoo Temple rebuilt from early church history.
  

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E-mail: rodger@desnews.com

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