#mormon temples

[midwesternartlovertraveler]

The Salt Lake City Temple is going through a major renovation and seismic upgrade. The Tabernacle is open. The rest of Temple Square is closed. These pictures were taken on June 6, 2024.

https://midwesternartlovertraveler.tumblr.com/

[dewpostcards]

Sent to Germany. Thrifted.

"Christmas Time on Temple Square

Salt Lake City, UT

The lighting of temple square at Christmas Time has added so much to the beauty and serene surroundings of this area. The history "Mormon" Temple can be seen in the background"

[nerdragenewvegas]

Me, before playing Honest Hearts: I've left the Mormon church because I was unable to reconcile the Plan of Salvation doctrine, which honestly supports and validates the existence of trans and non-binary people if anything, with the Church's stance on trans and non-binary people. I have complicated feelings about it and I'm unsure how I identify religiously, which is complicated by the fact that I converted to Mormonism of my own choice when I was in my early 20's, but I still believe the teachings to be mostly true at their core, and I hope that the Church comes around one day and changes their stance on LGBTQ+ people so I can maybe re-join. Me, after playing Honest Hearts for the first time: oh my god I was in a cult.

[pointandshooter]

Mormon Temple, Kensington, Maryland

photo: David Castenson

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

Sparrow's incomprehensive list of Favorite Temple Baptistry Life Hacks Slash Habits:

- nobody says you have to get the same size underclothes and jumpsuit. I used to be thin and tall and HATED the feeling of the jumpsuits rubbing against my ankles so I got a small undersuit and medium jumpsuit.

- Always choose an empty locker. Look through and if there's a missing key, pick a different one. Unless it's super busy. In which case, abandon all hope.

- Pick the locker closest to the showers. Saves you some awkward walking-in-just-a-towel time, plus you always know where your locker is if you choose the same spot each time.

- If your locker keys have a safety pin for you to put through your jumpsuit's zipper pull, first push it through the fabric of your jumpsuit. I can't describe it with words but you'll see it pretty frequently among templegoers, I think. Keeps it from falling down.

- You can get 2 towels. Nobody's gonna stop you. I've heard of people who always get 2, and they usually have a fun time. If you care a lot about being fully dry and comfortable, just ask for an extra towel.

- Perform a whole strip routine in that shower. Nobody wants to be freezing, trying to undress before turning on the hot water. Just turn the water on and get in fully dressed. Undress while standing under the showerhead. 10x more pleasant experience. Just make sure to wring it out when you're done.

- Say "thank you!" when throwing wet clothes down the laundry chute. This one isn't a hack, but once upon a time a temple worker yelled "thank you!" up the chute to me when I threw my clothes down, so it's now just a fun little thing I like to do. Thank the temple workers for their time!

A lot of these are probably common sense or are traditions handed down from templegoer to templegoer, but I think if you're heading to the temple for the first time, it can be nice to get an inside scoop ;)

[witekspicsoldpostcards]

The MORMON TEMPLE / SALT LAKE CITY - UTAH / USA (photo set 2).

[heathersdesk]

My grandfather was killed in a hit and run accident in 1978.

His mother and sister struggled with life after that. They decided to go on a trip across the United States together to get away from things for a while.

I discovered this trip when I was going through photo albums and suddenly saw a place I recognized.

The Salt Lake Temple.

They went to many places during that trip. But there was something truly special to me that, in one of the worst seasons of their lives, they ended up at the temple.

I served part of my mission at Temple Square. I was waiting for a visa to Brazil that I began to think was never coming. I had a truly horrendous time in the MTC babysitting a district of Elders who spent weeks on end bullying me and tearing down my self-esteem. I was told directly by someone, I forget who now, that I was being sent there to recover. And when I realized that the mission had no young Elders in it at all, that it was only Sisters and senior couples, I came to appreciate what that meant.

I had so many wild interactions there with so many people. Some of them were strange, like the guy who viewed the Book of Mormon as proof of alien interactions with humans. There were moments of heartbreak, like the woman who was in tears at the Christus statue who attacked us when we checked in on her. There were moments of pure delight, like when an LDS family with two young daughters came to that same Christus statue. The oldest girl, no older than 4 or 5, squealed "JESUS" and ran to the Savior's feet, little sister in tow. Whenever I hear someone mention the teaching to become as a little child, she is exactly who I think of.

There were also moments that were meant solely for me, like when I met the first Sister to ever be called to the Boston mission I had hoped to go to to wait for my visa. Boston has a large Brazilian population, many of whom are members of the Church. I had begged in prayer to be sent there and was told by other people it wouldn't happen because "Sisters don't go there." I had an entire conversation with the woman who was going to be that change. It seemed cruel to me at the time, dangling the carrot of something I wanted right in front of my face. In time, I've realized it was so I would remember that God does miracles and is aware of the desires of my heart, even if it means I don't get what I want. Someone needed to exercise enough faith to push that door open for women. I put my full weight behind it, and I can be just as proud that it opened for someone else.

But some of my favorite people I met there were people who just made me laugh. I met a Jewish convert from New York who told us his conversion story, how what drew him in was the Plan of Salvation. He summarized it in a New York accent in a voice I can still hear in my mind: "So you're a god, eventually. But can you pay RENT?!"

One of my favorite people I met was a Scottish convert named Agnes who was doing the Mormon trail across the US, beginning in New England and ending in Utah. She was a much older woman and told us all about her pilgrimage, and how she had cuddled with the oxen at the baptismal font in the Manhattan New York Temple. (I've been there. You enter into the baptistry on face level with them, or did the last time I was there.) She shared her testimony with us, and I'll never forget what she said.

She explained that the story of Joseph Smith was really hard to get her mind around. It truly is an insane set of asks: angels, gold plates, polygamy, and all the rest. She talked about how she came to accept it—not through any kind of empirical evidence or proof, but through faith and what that looked like.

For her, it was the recognition that being LDS was the best way she had ever encountered to live an excellent life. She said that the worst case scenario she could imagine is one where God would say to her, "You know that whole business with Joseph Smith was a load of crock, right? But you lived such a good life, I have to let you in anyway."

That has always stayed with me. Agnes was one of many people who came to the Square looking for something. I saw people come there looking for faith, or a fight, and truly everything in between. And it's only now that I'm older and wiser that I see something clearly now that I couldn't see then.

Agnes didn't need to come to Temple Square to find faith. She already had a tremendous amount of faith. She, and many others, were looking for conviction. I was at Temple Square long enough to learn you don't get that from a place. While a place like Temple Square can illuminate the possibilities for conviction through the lens of history, it doesn't bestow that conviction through contact or proximity alone. Conviction is made from the materials of your own life and your own choices. Your will, how firmly you place yourself into an immovable and unyielding position, is the measure of your convictions. It comes from within.

Faith is the decision to believe in what you cannot see, and what cannot be proven objectively. That never goes away. Nothing we experience in life, no place we ever visit, will create a shortcut under, over, or around that decision to believe, to trust in God. Faith, at its core, is a decision. The ability to continue making that decision over and over again, under all species of hardship and opposition, is conviction.

Where Jesus walked is nowhere near as important as how Jesus walked, and with whom. The same is true for all of us. Our walk with God might never take us anywhere near a temple because of where God has called us to go. But we are the holiest dwelling places of God on earth—not any of the buildings we've made.

Be a holy place of living faith wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be. Worship God, no matter what places you can or cannot enter. There is more than one way to access a temple. One way is to enter a place that people invite God to dwell. The other is to become that place. There can be no separation from God where communion never ceases. It is the refuge that is unassailable by others for as long as the person wills it so. The torch within will not go out.

The temple is not special because it has some holy essence that springs forth out of nothing, to passively be absorbed by others. The temple is special because it directs people to Jesus Christ, who is the giver of healing and peace. The temple is just a building. It's Jesus Christ that is the true power behind it all, whose objective is to make you, me, and every person you know the holiest creature you've ever beheld. You are the end goal.

[latterdaysainttemples]

Inside the newly renovated Manti Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Read the Church Newsroom article. Learn more about Latter-day Saint temples, their purposes, and find a temple open house near you.

Built 1888, renovated 1985, rededicated 2024.

[loveerran]

Could you elaborate on the JS sealing practices?

Great question! Thank you :)

What I am referring to (in this post) is the breadth and depth of the sealing power as envisioned and implemented by Joseph Smith and practiced in the early church. The original post speaks to how our family is more than just direct line descent or blood relations.

I've previously noted that 9 of Joseph's first 12 plural sealings were to women already legally married. Today, we regularly seal deceased women to more than one man (and deceased men to more than one woman) if they were married to more than one individual in mortality. We understand it will all be sorted out later.

But more interesting to many of us is the notion that sealings were performed for things other than marriages and the sealing of direct-line ancestors to direct-line progeny. Consider this account from the diary of John M. Bernhisel relating a sealing between friends and cousins, aunts and nephews and so on:

"The following named deceased persons were sealed to me on Oct 26th 1843, by President Joseph Smith: Maria Bernhisel, sister; Brother Samuel's wife, Catherine Kremer; Mary Shatto, (Aunt); Madalena Lupferd, (distant relative); Catherine Bernhisel, Aunt; Hannah Bower, Aunt; Elizabeth Sheively, Aunt; Hannah Bower, cousin; Maria Lawrence, (intimate friend); Sarah Crosby, intimate friend, /died May 11 1839/; Mary Ann Bloom, cousin."

A Gospel Topics essay notes early sealing practices may have been intended to extend family ties "both vertically, from parent to child, and horizontally, from one family to another".

Of additional interest is how proxy ordinances for the deceased, including proxy baptisms, could be performed by someone of any gender, prior to Brigham Young clarifying the same gender requirement in 1845. We also note non-related individuals were sealed by adoption to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and other church leaders, including men sealed to men as father/son adoptive pairs.

Some believe our current evolution in practice aligns itself more closely to God's will and the original practice was at fault or incomplete. However, I give Joseph's expansive vision a lot of room. And the truth is that non-family, non-lineal sealings were performed by Joseph and others. Will those sealings be honored in the eternities, or will they be null and void? I have a hard time believing the latter. And what of OP's case for "the spinster aunt who had no kids but made sure that three of the six kids her sister abandoned survived into adulthood"? Church doctrine is big on adoption already, and I can only imagine that relationships like found family and adoption continue in the eternities.

To me, the sealing vision feels more expansive than our current understanding and practice may be.

[ghostlyerlkonig]

so sorry but everytime I see fanart of joshua graham with a cross my little exmormon heart cringes just a little

[midwesternartlovertraveler]

The Vernal Utah Temple https://midwesternartlovertraveler.tumblr.com/

[bulbagarden]

i was in downtown salt lake city taking a look around today, and there was this really cool ice cream/dessert place! it's called the penguin brothers and they have ice cream sandwiches!! go there if you're in the area, support small businesses!!!!!!!!!

but i wanted to share this cute kanto (penguin!) ash + piplup.. and what i got too LOL. honeycomb ice cream w snickerdoodle! it was sooooooooo goood omg..

[themythecho]

Church Doodles 🫶🫶

I LOVE drawing BOM people as modern day memes, it’s an issue.

the second drawing is from this book “The Temple Secret” by Angie Welsh! Expect fan art of it, and please read it 🤭🤭 (I may or not be helping out with the second book via cover design)

The 3rd doodle is for this art contest on instagram 🫶🫶

[thebunnylord]

So… funny church story that happened to me when I was little…

When I was in primary, they decided to have the kids come to the temple with our parents and teach us the importance of temples and all that. We didn’t go inside the actual temple itself, we just looked through the door.

Well, right before we walked from the church building to the temple building, they had an activity where we built our own temples out of toothpicks and mini marshmallows. Of course being a little kid, I made an igloo temple for Antarctica complete with an outdoor baptismal font for the penguins.

And then I devoured it.

Of course I got sick. As we were walking up the steps from the church parking lot to the temple, I turned to my primary teacher and was like “sister [cat], I think I’m going to puke…”

I was immediately rushed to the front of the line to puke in the bushes and it just so happened right at that moment, one of the adults took a picture of us from behind. It featured me and sister [cat] hurrying up the steps while I stumble behind trying not to puke.

A few weeks later they used that picture as part of their bulletin board right outside of the chapel to show every one of our trip. Out of context and from the position it was taken in, it looked like a group of primary children climbing up the steps to see the temple.

However! If it was taken facing us from the front, you could probably see just how sick I was and the anxiety on the poor sister’s face of not having me yak all over the beautiful temple grounds. Only me, her, and my parents know of the full context of that picture.

Moral of the story: don’t gorge yourself on a crap ton of mini marshmallows right before a temple trip.

[hiseyeisonthesparrow]

The only 2 genres of women's temple dress style names are "Random white woman names" or "cities with temples in them". Occasionally they'll name them based on women in the scriptures, but they run out of those pretty fast, and since "Morianton's Maidservant" or "King Lamoni's Wife" don't exactly roll off the tongue as temple dress names, they give up and start going with "Jennifer" or "Oleander" or whatever.

[wowbright]

Fic: Recommend

Fandom/pairing: Glee, Kurt/Blaine

Event: December Klaine Fanworks Challenge 2023

Words: ~1500 words                                         

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: Although Kurt's faith has changed, he still manages to get his temple recommend renewed.

Notes: This is part of my Mormon!Klaine universe. It takes place after Out of Eden, which I am still in the process of posting to AO3. It’s among the possibilities for their future. Mormonsplaining and mild warnings in tags.

* * *

Kurt and his parents had always planned for him to do Finn's temple work when he got back from his mission. It had seemed the right thing at the time, a fitting way to honor the two young men’s brotherhood and make it even more real.

They hadn't seen its one glaring flaw: they were all assuming Kurt would return from Germany with the same faith he'd taken with him when he’d left.

“I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get my temple recommend renewed when I get back,” Elder St. James said to Kurt on their Lufthansa flight to New York. He was on his third Milka mini chocolate bar snatched from the candy buffet near the bathrooms on the lower deck, and Kurt was on his fourth.

“Why?” Kurt said. “Gluttony’s not against the Word of Wisdom. Besides, if chocolate and cookies are all they're going to offer us between meals and we're growing young men, we kind of have no choice. Besides, that breakfast was hardly a breakfast.”

“European breakfasts never are,” agreed Elder St. James. “But it's not the Word of Wisdom I'm concerned about. It's that question about sustaining all the leaders. I'm not sure I can answer ‘yes’ to that in good conscience. I mean, I voted to sustain them at the last general conference, but since my vote doesn’t actually mean anything since they just ignore the abstentions and opposition votes, am I actually sustaining them?”

“You pray for them, don't you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I think that's what sustaining means—offering sustenance. With a child, that would mean giving them food and clothing and shelter and support and love. The leaders don't need those first three things from us, but they do need our support and love. And we show that by respecting them and praying for them.”

“Huh.” Elder St. James opened a fourth chocolate bar and took a thoughtful bite. “I suppose that works. I mean, it's not my fault that I can't actually sustain them in the vote sense, and the temple questions are supposed to be about things that are within our own control, so … Thanks, Elder Hummel. That helps.”

Kurt unwrapped his fifth chocolate. But before he could break off a piece, he started wondering if he was eating his feelings, trying not to think about what was actually happening, how he was currently vaulting through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, every second pulling him farther and farther away from Blaine and closer to a future that he couldn't envision. Hmmm. Maybe he should eat his feelings. It was better than thinking about that. Besides, he felt nowhere near full.

“Do you have any worries?” Elder St. James said.

Kurt had so many worries, he didn't know where to start. Maybe he could mention how he didn't actually understand how planes stayed in the air and it was rather disconcerting to be hovering over the Arctic when he could easily imagine the plane just dropping out of the sky and plunging them into the icy water to their untimely deaths, and while he didn't fear for his own salvation, he did rather like this life they were currently living and also, it would be terrible for his parents to lose two sons in so many years. But before Kurt could think about whether this was an appropriate response, Elder St. James clarified, “About your temple recommend questions?”

Kurt gave his one-time companion a sharp look. “What's that supposed to mean?” The recommend questions included one about the law of chastity, and while Kurt knew he had done nothing wrong, it would be better if rumors didn’t spread. Blaine was still inside the mission.

“Nothing in particular.” The vacant look behind elder St. James's eyes seemed to confirm his sincerity. “I mean, you’re such a Peter Priesthood I figured you wouldn't have trouble with any of them. But maybe I was hoping, just a little, that you were in the same boat as me.”

“What boat is that?” Kurt asked.

Elder St. James popped the rest of his chocolate bar into his mouth and chewed it slowly. He didn't speak again until he had swallowed it all. “I don't know. Not as excited about all this church stuff as I was when we were on the plane out here? I mean, I don't even know if I want to go to the temple again.”

"Well, the temple is –" Kurt looked over your shoulder to make sure no one was listening. He had, perhaps, become a little too used to speaking about the temple freely with Blaine. “–it's a lot different from every day worship. And the sessions are long. But I want to go back. I have work to do for my stepbrother.”

The necessity of that work, Kurt’s obligation to his family—they had nagged at Kurt as he’d weighed the risks of becoming physically intimate with Blaine. It had felt like another unfairness imposed on him by the church, forced to choose between loyalty to the family he came from and commitment to the family he was discovering in Blaine.

But as time passed and Kurt got closer to leaving Germany, denying the gift Blaine was offering him had begun to feel like a sin bigger than any lie Kurt might tell the bishop. And he had discovered just how true that was when they finally slept together: being intimate with Blaine, Kurt had felt for the first time what it must have been like to be one of those legendary first humans, before sin and pain existed, when they felt no shame in their nakedness or the bodies that had been gifted them. Their love was sinless because it grew from that same place without sin.

So it was with a clean conscience, upon returning to Ohio, that Kurt answered yes to his bishop’s question of Do you obey the law of chastity? Kurt’s actions with Blaine had been authentically chaste—reserved for one’s spouse, pure in conduct and intention, free of coercion, seeing the full humanity of the other person and loving them for it. Blaine was his other half in the truest sense, regardless of whether the church or the law recognized it.

Nor did Kurt have any qualms about professing his testimony in God the creator or in Jesus Christ or the restoration of the gospel—his faith in these things was even deeper than before he left on his mission, though in a way he would never have expected.

Even Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? was easy to answer the right way, because the only teachings “accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” were those that had come before the general conference for a vote of common consent. The Proclamation on the Family wasn't one of those things. And besides, he was pretty sure the question was mainly meant to root out polygamists.

Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple? and Do you strive to keep the covenants you have made, to attend your sacrament and other meetings, and to keep your life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel? were harder. Kurt wasn't even sure he remembered all the covenants he had made in the temple. But the ones he remembered, and the ones he had honestly agreed to, with full understanding—he strove to keep those. As for keeping his life in harmony with the laws and commandments of the gospel, he was more committed to doing that than he’d ever been, even if his understanding of “the gospel” was probably different than his bishop’s.

“Have there been any sins or misdeeds in your life that should have been resolved with priesthood authorities but have not been?” the bishop asked.

“No,” Kurt answered.

“And finally,” the bishop said, “do you consider yourself worthy to enter the Lord’s house and participate in temple ordinances?”

No more or less than any other of God’s children, Kurt thought to say, but he knew it wasn't the answer the bishop was looking for and would only confuse him. “Yes,” Kurt said.

The bishop signed the recommend and sent Kurt on his way with a smile and a handshake and, “Now, don’t spend all your time at the temple. Your first priority now that you've gotten back from your mission is to find a wife.”

“Thanks for the advice," said Kurt, trying to accept it in the same well-meaning spirit it was given.

Then it was rinse and repeat with the stake president, and Kurt had his recommend. Alone in the car, he turned the card over in his hand, staring at the movement of light over its barcode and lettering. “Finn,” he said, “I hope you’re ready for this.”