Brigham City LDS Temple

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building_name Brigham City LDS Temple
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caption Temple under construction, 2011
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coordinates 41.505657, -112.016505
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address 250 South Main
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website = https://www.lds.org/church/temples/brigham-city-utah?lang eng
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architect FFKR Architects
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general_contractor Big-D Construction
facade_direction east
groundbreaking 31 July 2010
year_completed 2012
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Announcement

On October 3, 2009, in the Saturday morning session of the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Church President Thomas S. Monson announced that a temple would be built in Brigham City, Utah. This news surprised and delighted church members in Box Elder County and Southern Idaho.Box Elder News Journal, “Brigham City LDS Temple”, Aug. 2012. p. 1.
When asked about her reaction, Beverly Yates of Elwood said, “I was shocked! I would not have thought it would happen because there are so many temples around here. There’s the Logan Temple; there’s the Ogden Temple; there’s the Bountiful Temple. And to have a temple this close was incredible! I feel like we’re the luckiest people in the world to have it so close and such a beautiful building in this area.”Interview of Beverly Yates conducted by Kathleen Bradford, Aug. 15, 2012, p. 1.
Dennis Fife was running for the office of Brigham City Mayor when he heard the news. He said:

I was listening to General Conference when it was announced. It was quite a shock because we never thought a temple would be built here when we had such close temples in Ogden and Logan.

A surprise and just an excitement that I can’t explain came over us – that we would have a temple here in Brigham City! The election was in November, and then I was sworn into office the first week in January. That’s when I got involved. I knew it would be a positive and sacred thing for the members of the LDS Church, but it would also be an economic boom for the whole community.Interview of Mayor Dennis Fife conducted by Kathleen Bradford, June 6, 2012, p. 1-2.

Temple Site

After their initial elation surrounding the construction of a new temple in town, people began speculating about where it would be built. Their curiosity was satisfied on Oct. 27, 2009, when church leaders announced that the temple site would be the city block directly across Main Street from the historic Box Elder Tabernacle.Box Elder News Journal, Oct. 27, 2009.
In 1901 the Central School had been built on the property now designated for the temple. After the school burned down, a new one-level elementary school was constructed on the same block and was also called Central School. The replacement school was torn down after its closure in 2000, and the property known as Central Square was vacant for many years.Box Elder News Journal, “Brigham City LDS Temple”, p. 6, 12. Jeff Packer said about the original Central School:

The school was the main elementary school in our community. It was a three-story building, and it was the building where President Boyd K. Packer obtained his elementary education. I was hired as a real estate agent and broker to market the property on behalf of the Box Elder School District. I also was acting as an agent for O. J. Call, founder of the Flying J Corporation. He had developed a substantial business and had determined to move his office to Ogden. The result of that was that he needed to sell his 30,000 square-foot office space, which he had listed with my company as well.Interview of Jeffrey Packer by Kathleen Bradford, June 13, 2012, p. 1.

A property exchange between the school district and Flying J resulted in the school district’s administrative office occupying the former Flying J corporate office, the Dale Young Community High School moving to the former district office, and Flying J transferring its business to Ogden.
Packer continued,

Those sites sat for literally six or seven years without us being able to find a buyer after we had invested well over $600,000 in improvements. It was a very discouraging time. I took care of the property wondering why we couldn’t find a buyer that would locate a business in downtown Brigham City, believing that it was just a superb site for such a location. Well, in May of 2009, I was contacted by a Brother Davies of the LDS Church. He asked me to start sending him information about the site.

Although Packer didn’t know it at the time, that contact was the first step leading to the eventual sale of the property to the Church as the site of the Brigham City Temple.Interview of Jeffrey Packer by Kathleen Bradford, June 13, 2012, p. 1.

Groundbreaking

The temple groundbreaking on July 31, 2010, was preceded by much planning and work by local church and city leaders. Box Elder Stake President Ronald Frandsen related how he was assigned to oversee the event:

I got a call from Elder William Walker, Managing Director of the Temple Department, who said,“ Brother Frandsen, are you the President of the Brigham City Utah Box Elder Stake?”

I said,“Yes, I am.”

He said,“I’d like to read a letter to you that was just approved by the First Presidency.” So he read this letter that said,“You are hereby appointed to serve as the local coordinator for the groundbreaking of the Brigham City Temple.”

That kind of took me by surprise, but it was a pleasant surprise. I had hoped that I’d be able to do something as we began this project. I just wanted to be a contributing factor.

I asked him, “What exactly is the temple district?” Because I wanted to know how far I could go to get resources for the groundbreaking.

He said, “Well, that’s not been approved yet, but basically it’s all of Box Elder County and Malad, Idaho.”

That was particularly pleasing to me because I had been interested in the history of this stake for a long time. In 1977, when our stake celebrated its anniversary, the centennial, I learned that the Box Elder Stake was the 20th stake formed after the exodus from Nauvoo and had basically the same boundaries as the new temple district. So it’s really a pioneer stake, and establishing it was the last official act that Brigham Young performed on the 19th of August 1877 because on the 29th he passed away. He didn’t take any other official actions. The groundbreaking went well because we just had so many people who were helpful to us.Interview of Ronald Frandsen by Kathleen Bradford, June 21, 2010, p. 3, 4.

Jim Buchanan, Director of Brigham City Emergency Services, and Lieutenant Mike Nelsen of the Brigham Brigham City Police Department were assigned to provide security and law enforcement services and to be involved in the planning and preparation for the groundbreaking. Jim said,

After the site was announced, many people would drive by, and you’d see them taking family pictures right out on the ground of the Temple site, which was basically a vacant lot with weeds. They were picking up rocks and taking the rocks home. The more Mike and I saw that, the more we realized that we were going to have a good turnout.

On the morning of the groundbreaking, people started showing up about 5:30 with lawn chairs, their coolers and blankets. They were on the Tabernacle lawn, and they also had come over to the Temple grounds. Even though we didn’t let them into the seating before 8 o’clock, they were there.

I said to Mike, “If you’ve got people here at 5 in the morning, you’re going to have a lot of people.”

By 8 o’clock to 8:30, we were packing them in like sardines. We estimate with the Police Department, that somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 people attended the groundbreaking. We had all the chairs filled. The space behind the chairs that we had roped off, so that they didn’t fall off the little inclines there, was full. The grounds of the Tabernacle were full, with families with blankets and picnics making an event of it.

Because we knew that we would impact the business community, Mike and I had personally gone and talked to Smith’s. We talked to South Fork. We talked to the businesses and said, “During this time frame, you’re going to be disrupted.”

We felt they needed to know because it would impact their economic intake for that day. All of them were great. Smith’s brought in extra deli help. They brought in donuts, drinks — those kinds of things – to cater to the people that would be coming to the groundbreaking. The ground was all leveled; we chalked off where the chairs were going to go. Chairs were brought in an orderly fashion and were all set up. The sound system was put in, and streets were closed. So there was a great coordination between the Church Groundbreaking Committee and the City in making things happen.Interview with Jim Buchanan by Kathleen Bradford, Aug. 7, 2012, p. 1-3.

General Authorities of the Church were among more than 9,000 people gathered on the grounds of the temple and tabernacle and those in Stake Centers who watched the proceedings on television. The day’s program included remarks from Boyd K. Packer, President of the Church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, and his wife Donna Smith Packer, both of whom reminisced about growing up in Brigham City. President Packer said, “I am home.” He talked of coming up Main Street with his brothers to attend the Central School, which had stood in the middle of what would soon be the temple block. He continued, “There was no grass around the school. There was just gravel. Can you imagine what it would take to have a block like this in the central part of the city and preserve it for 150 years to wait until a temple could be built?”
President Packer spoke of the significance of peaches in Brigham City and of their inclusion in the design of the temple. “I can see in my mind’s eye a temple sitting here,” he said. “It will be gorgeous, and it will be white. It will be a beacon from all over the valley. It will be a symbol of who and what we are.”
Sister Donna Smith Packer said, “It is a pleasure to be with you today, to feel of your spirit. We were born and raised here, and seven of our 10 children were born in your midst. So Brigham City is a special memory in our hearts, and we often return here to admire the tabernacle, to visit our forebears in the cemetery, and to pay tribute for all they have given us.”
After President Packer dedicated the temple grounds, he joined other Church Authorities and City leaders in turning the soil. Children were then invited to help in breaking the ground.
At the advanced age of 85, President Packer said he would be present for the dedication of the temple itself. “I’m getting a bit rickety,” he joked, “but I feel confident in promising you that I’ll be back for the dedication of the temple. And I think I have enough authority to get me assigned to be here.”Box Elder News Journal “Brigham City LDS Temple” p. 8-10, 22-23.

Temple Construction

The architects for the Brigham City Temple were FFKR Architects, and the contractor was Big-D Construction of Ogden, Utah. Dale Satterthwaite, senior vice President of Big-D, talked about his company’s building history,

It’s always been commercial and industrial buildings, everything really from office construction to manufacturing buildings, food plants, dairies, and distribution. And for the past 7 or 8 years we have been able to be involved in temple construction. We got an opportunity to do some remodeling work during a shut-down period in the Salt Lake Temple. That was our start. We went in one summer during their shut down and did a good job for them. As a result of that, I think, we got an opportunity to go to Twin Falls and bid and won that project. That was the first ground-up temple that we did. Since then, of course, the Brigham Temple was completed just recently. We are in the process of the renovation of the Ogden Temple and its complete grounds – the tabernacle and parking there. We continue to do work every shut down in the Salt Lake Temple while there are no patrons there.

Every building starts with a foundation, and so you excavate for the foundation, and it all builds upon that – whether it be a steel structure, a concrete structure, or masonry. All those components were used in the Brigham Temple, and then they just came together into a finished product.

In the temple it was a structural steel frame with some concrete core walls at the ends where the elevator shafts are, which gives it the rigidity in the structure. Then, of course, once the steel structure was up and in its framed condition, what you saw going on were the precast exterior panels, which are precast concrete. The concrete is built in plants. They make it in a controlled environment with concrete and crushed stone. For some of the glitter you see in there, there is stone in the Brigham precast, which gives it that stony, glittery look. It’s cast in a controlled environment with anchors on the back so it can attach to the building.

In Brigham City I think there were a lot more eyes on the project than the normal, and it was a very special project for Brigham.

The construction missionaries there on site, Elder and Sister Peck, did a special thing for the workers. They rotated the opportunity for different families and youth groups to bring lunch to the workers every Thursday. This gave the people of the temple district an opportunity to feel part of the project, and the workers were very appreciative of that.Interview with Dale Satterthwaite, Oct. 26, 2012 by Kathleen Bradford, p. 3-5.

Describing his personal feelings about the temple, Satterthwaite said,

It was a very special project here at BIG-D. It takes a full orchestra of team to pull off a project like this. I hand it to all the people that were involved from our managers on down to the craftsmen that made it all happen because it turned out to be a very beautiful temple. I think it’s one of a kind, and it will be special in my mind and heart for a long time as I’m sure it will be to all of those in the temple district.” Interview with Dale Satterthwaite, Oct. 26, 2012 by Kathleen Bradford, p. 10.

Additional facts about the temple structure were provided to the media as follow:

Exterior features

  • Second floor round windows with art-glass peach blossoms;
  • Local stone from Weber Canyon used for walls around site; and
  • Twenty-six fruit trees on site.

Interior features

  • Wood trim is hand-carved maple;
  • Stone floor imported from Turkey;
  • Several pieces of original art work throughout temple-building; and
  • Cast bronze oxen; all 12 unique from each other.Press packet distributed by Church Public Relations Department on Media Day at the Temple, Aug. 15, 2012.

Angel Moroni Installed

Sculptor Karl Quilter has created statues of the Angel Moroni for LDS temples in countries all over the world. He spoke about the process at a meeting in the Box Elder Tabernacle June 24, 2011. He explained that the statues measure 12 feet in height and vary in weight because he has used different materials in the sculptures. For example, the San Antonio statue weighs 267 pounds compared to the 4,000-pound one on the Salt Lake Temple. He talked of the gold leaf on the statues being about 1/100 as thick as a human hair. He said the amount of gold is about the size of a 50-cent piece but has been hammered and rolled out to about an acre in size. Quilter added that it is now standard procedure to install a lightning rod into the sculpture, so that when it is placed on the temple, the rod fits into the spire like a key into a lock.Box Elder News Journal, June 24, 2011.
Contractor Satterthwaite described the day, July 12, 2011, when the statue was installed on the Brigham City Temple, “We waited all day long, but we just had too much wind that day. You can’t fit loads on a frame when there are winds over 15 or 20 miles an hour. There were a lot of people there that day – some antsy and some probably impatiently waiting. He finally went up in the mid-afternoon.”Satterthwaite interview, p. 6.
Jim Buchanan also described that day:

About a half hour from the time it was ready to set, there were 4,000 or 5,000 people waiting to see the Angel Moroni installed. When you take that many people and put them in a square block, that’s a lot of people.

Remember it was kind of overcast and windy. The winds had to be below a certain number of miles per hour or they couldn’t put the statue up because of the swing. Well, they’d lift it up, and everybody would become enthusiastic. Then they’d set it down, and they’d become disgruntled and say, “Put it back up.” Finally it got to be that this thirty-minute time frame to raise Moroni and set him in place got to be a couple of hours. People left.

We had almost determined to open the roads. Well, the wind died down, and up he went. We do not know to this day where they came from, but those people were back. It was like they came out of the woodwork. Just whoosh! So we got him set, and people took pictures, and then they left.Buchanan interview, p. 5.

Open House

Elder William Walker, a member of the First Quorum of Seventies in the LDS Church and Executive Director, called Aug. 14, 2012, “a great day in northern Utah” as the temple doors were opened to the local media. He then led them through the temple, answering questions and pointing out its similarity to the early temples in Salt Lake City, Manti, St. George and Logan. He showed features of the decor which reflects the history of Box Elder County. For example, Brigham City is known as “Peach City” because of the high-quality peaches raised in the area. A peach blossom theme is apparent throughout the temple, including on the exterior walls, in the carpet, in the round windows and on the backs of chairs.
He said that after the dedication, this temple would be the Church’s 139th operating temple in the world and the 14th in Utah. Other temples in Utah are located in American Fork, Bountiful, Draper, Logan, Manti, Monticello, Ogden, Provo, Salt Lake City, South Jordan, St. George and Vernal. This temple will serve more than 40,000 Latter-day Saints living in the northern Utah and southeastern Idaho area. Elder Walker stated that tickets for the public open house are free, but it is necessary to have a reservation. On the day of the media tour, 300,000 tickets had been reserved.‘A happy day’ in northern Utah. Deseret News, Aug. 15, 2012, B1, B6.
Another special tour was arranged for all the men and women who had worked on the temple construction, even for just a few days, to bring their families and see the finished results of their labors. Temple Missionary Michele Peck said, “It was wonderful to have the workers come back and say, ‘Man, this was such a great project! We just loved working here in Brigham City on the Temple!’
They were so excited to have their families see what they’d been working on and what they’d done.”
Her husband Elder Gregory Peck wanted to do something to honor the construction workers and decided to take a local class in sculpture. He explained, “I had this idea of sculpting a construction worker dressed up in his tool belt and hard hat, kneeling in prayer to show that there’s more than one dimension to a construction worker. There’s more than just the strong back and the hands that know how to build things; there’s a spiritual dimension there, too, especially that they were working here on the Lord’s house.”
When he completed the statue, he had it bronzed, and displayed it at the workers’ tour of the temple. He titled the sculpture “The Master’s Hand.” On a table beside it was a framed tribute which stated, “This sculpture was created by Elder Gregory Peck, Brigham City Temple Construction Missionary. It is dedicated to all the construction workers who helped build this magnificent House of the Lord.” The sculpture remained on display in the hospitality room of the temple throughout the month-long open house.Interview of Gregory and Michele Peck by Kathleen Bradford, Aug. 30, 2012, p 8, 9.
Public tours began on Saturday Aug. 18 and ran through Sept. 15. Throughout that time, numerous individuals, youth groups and families dressed in their Sunday best came to tour the temple and were also seen in Brigham City’s parks, restaurants, and other businesses. They were transported by bus to the temple from two locations – one in the south part of town and one in the west. The tours began with a 10-minute film explaining the history and use of temples. The visitors were then taken by local guides on tours of the temple, and many were seen afterward on the immaculately landscaped grounds posing for photographs after their tours. Elder Walker told the crowd assembled that 404,000 people had attended the open house.
Sharon Christensen, one of the ushers assigned to conduct the open house tours, described a life-changing experience she had while taking a blind woman through the temple. She said:

We were sitting there in lull time before another group came out, and one of the sisters came up to me and said, “We need you to help with a special assignment. We have a group of five blind women wanting to go on the tour. She asked me to take one of them through and explained “It’s not a silent tour for them because they can’t see, and you will have to explain things to them.”

Her name was Myra, and she said, “This is the first temple I have been able to go into.”

She hadn’t been blind all of her life so she knew color, and so I could tell her what colors things were.

I looked at the door, and I was thinking, How do I describe a door? I told her it was this beautiful glass door with brass surrounding it, and the glass was etched and beveled so you couldn’t really see in, but you could see through it. As we went in, I said “Here is kind of a foyer with beautiful tables and flowers.”

She said, “Let me touch it.”

She put her hand on the table and said, “Oh, this is beautiful!

I describe the pictures on the walls and the frames. Then we came to the second door and I explained that this door was different from the other one. We walked in, and she said, “Oh, we’re on a tile floor.”

I said, “Well, it’s marble.

She said, “I have to feel it.” So she bent down and felt the marble on the floor. She said, “Oh, it’s so smooth!”

I took her on the elevator from the third floor down to the first floor to the hospitality area, and she asked, “What’s this room like?”

I said, “The furniture in here is beautiful – chairs, couches, tables with beautiful lamps and vases on them.”

As I was leaving, I saw the statue by Elder Peck, the temple construction missionary. I said, “Oh, I have to show this before we leave. It was done by our temple missionary, a man who has been here during the entire construction.” And she was feeling it with her hands. She said, “This is beautiful work!” I read the tribute to her, and she said, “He is an artist like you will rarely see because he has features here that are so detailed. He is a brilliant artist!”

I hadn’t looked at it as a detailed statue. I had to feel it to see what she saw – close my eyes and feel the detail. I saw the temple through her eyes, which was so different from what my eyes saw. I was so humbled!Interview with Sharon Christensen by Kathleen Bradford, October 5, 2012, Brigham City, Utah.

Hospitality Committee

I attended the media tour of the newly-finished Brigham City Temple on August 14, 2012. I saw local history depicted throughout the building, such as paintings of area landscapes, peach blossoms represented in the building’s décor – in the carpeting, chandeliers, and windows. We were shown portraits of church leaders highly involved in the settlement of the community. On the temple grounds, we saw fruit trees incorporated into the landscape to portray the importance of horticulture in Box Elder County history.
After seeing Brigham City’s heritage so tastefully reflected throughout the temple, we were served a delicious luncheon in the hospitality room. It seemed appropriate that the meal also reflected local traditions. We were served individual peach tarts as a reminder of the area’s peach industry and chocolate nut balls, which many residents and visitors relate to our town. Seeing the results of Beth Allen’s efforts, as well as those of the other committee members, I asked Beth for and received permission to use a report she had written about the logistics of the food preparation and service for the open house tours. Her written record follows:

I was asked by President Gregg Kotter to serve on the hospitality committee for the Brigham City Temple. Each week our committee met to discuss plans for providing food for several events in regards to the Brigham City Temple. Our first big responsibility was to plan and prepare food for the VIP’s who would be attending the temple the week before the open house began. The VIP’s included the media, people living close to the temple, businesses, etc. We served the following foods: chicken croissant sandwiches, ham sandwiches, tortilla roll ups, fruits, vegetables, brownies, pumpkin bread, banana bread, peach tarts, and an assortment of cookies.

A picture of the Brigham City Temple and important dates were placed on the labels of individual water bottles. We were told to expect 5,000 people, but we ended up serving 10,300 people. We had to run to the store several times and order more food items daily. Our chairman Kathy Hansen Gifford and her husband did an amazing job in coordinating everything that had to be done.

I volunteered to make chocolate nut balls for the VIP week. I made 1200 nut balls. They were a big hit and only lasted two days of the week-long VIP week.

Our next big project was to provide cookies and water to the guests who were coming to the to the open house. The Church did not want us to invite the members to make cookies so we had Smith’s grocery store make our cookies. Each night they would deliver 26,000 cookies. Most days we used all the cookies. Sometimes we carried them over to the next day. They came in huge boxes that contained 360 cookies in each box. We had chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, M&M, sugar, and peanut butter cookies. We served over 450,000 people.

On the 22nd of September 2012, there was a cultural celebration consisting of youth from the temple district. There were approximately 4,000 youth. Part of our committee’s responsibility was to provide a meal for those participating in the program. We decided to give them each a pulled-pork sandwich, chips, apples and caramel dip, vegetables, pop, and a Fat Boy ice cream.

During the VIP week, I had to be at the temple around 8:00 in the morning. Most days I didn’t get home until after 10:00 at night. During the regular open house, there were days when I had to be there at 6:00 in the morning, and I got home after 10:00. I came home exhausted and in a great deal of pain. Most nights it was hard to sleep because my legs and feet hurt so badly. The pain medication did not seem to help. Even though I was in a great deal of pain, I was full of gratitude for the wonderful opportunity I had to serve our Heavenly Father and the people who came to the temple.citation needed

Cultural Celebration

After the open house tours ended and the day before the temple dedication, 4,000 youth from the temple district portrayed its history through singing, dance, narration and projected historic photographs.
Beverly Yates recalled receiving the assignment to head the event:

I got a letter from Elder William Walker of the Seventies asking me to be chairman of the cultural celebration scheduled for September 22, 2012. I called my assistant, and we sat down together, and from the list of names submitted from the stakes we were able to decide things like directors, costume designers and writers. We created a talented committee who are experts in their own fields. We met with them the first day, and I said, “Okay. Now we need to make a decision about the theme of the celebration.”

Immediately the name of the program “Harvest of Faith” came up. We all wanted an agricultural theme. We had chosen a professional writer, and within a week she had the script ready. To portray the history of the temple district, we start with the Shoshone Indians. They were the first ones here. Then we have the Early Settlers; then the Co-op, a big part of our history; then, of course, the Railroad and the Golden Spike; and finally the Agricultural and Harvest Celebrations. That’s when the Peach Days parade started. We have the Bird Refuge; Patriotism, which covers the Bushnell Hospital and the soldiers. Then we have Industry, which covers the big companies in the area. Then we end with how we come from pioneer stock, and we are proceeding to spread the mission of the Church.

Our musicians produced in a month and a half four original music scores that are just amazing. Then we have our choreography, which is huge. Our gifted choreographers came up with all the dances. They’ve worked overtime. We have our stage directors, stage production people. I’m not a drama person, so with a lot of this stuff, I don’t know where to go, but these people know what to do.

Volunteers from every ward were given such assignments as making costumes or props, transporting young performers to and from their various rehearsals, or teaching songs and dances to small groups before they merged with the entire cast.Yates interview, p. 1-3.

On Sept. 22, the day of the performance, all the leaders and performers spent a 16-hour day on the Box Elder High School football field where the program was staged with the temple spires visible in the background. They had an early-morning run-through of the full performance. Then at both 2:30 and 6:30 pm, the celebration was presented for the audience seated in the stadium. The final performance was also broadcast to audiences assembled in stake centers throughout the temple district.
Mrs. Yates had promised success.Box Elder News Journal, “Brigham City LDS Temple” August 2012, p 24. She had said early in the planning, “You can’t get on a field with 4,000 people, be a part of that, feel the inspiring music, and not be touched by it. It’s going to be chills down your spine throughout most of it.” Audience members in the stadium and in the stake centers agreed that attending the celebration was a touching and inspiring experience.

Temple Dedication

As he had promised at the groundbreaking on July 31, 2010, President Boyd K. Packer returned to dedicate the Brigham City Temple on Sunday, September 23, 2012. Sunday meetings throughout Utah were canceled that day so that members could watch the dedication. It was broadcast in stake centers at three different times that day. Before the first session began, President Packer went outside the building to apply mortar to the cornerstone as it was set in place. Included in the contents of the cornerstone box were publications about the following topics: Christ, the Chief Cornerstone; Presidents of the Church; Apostles with Ties to the Temple District; Temple History and Memorabilia; Brigham City and Community Heritage; Music; and Stake Histories.
Each session was live with different church leaders speaking and praying. President Packer spoke briefly, saying that he and Sister Packer had watched the previous night’s cultural celebration from their own home and had been moved by all the events of the week. He thanked all who participated in building and furnishing the temple. He gave the dedicatory prayer in the first session, and it was read verbatim in the succeeding two sessions by other General Authorities. In the dedicatory prayer, he asked a blessing on the temple and its grounds. He asked that the temple would be kept safe from those who would defile it and that the president and matron and all who enter the temple would find peace. Further blessings were pronounced on the tabernacle and on all those who live in the temple district.Box Elder News Journal, Sept. 26, 2012, p 1, 8-9.
Each session’s agenda featured congregational singing and special numbers performed by choirs. Two weeks after the dedication, the temple was opened to worthy church members to participate in the sacred ordinances performed within the temple.
President Boyd K. Packer once wrote about temple work, “No work is more of a protection to this Church than temple work and the genealogical research which supports it. No work requires a higher standard of righteousness. Our labors in the temple cover us with a shield and a protection, both individually and as a people.”Tate, Lucile C. Boyd K. Packer, A Watchman on the Tower., Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah, 199, p. 204.

Notes


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