Provo City Center Temple Open House

Today we had the opportunity to tour the new Provo City Center before it is dedicated. This is a rare opportunity for the boys (especially) to tour a temple and see the various rooms inside. As members, you can only enter the temple as a worthy adult who has obtained a recommend from local church leaders. Youth can enter the bottom floor where the baptistry is once they are 12 years old. This area of the temple is available to youth and adults to perform baptisms for their ancestors who may not have had the opportunity to hear or accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in this life. The rest of the temple is only accessible to worthy adult members once the temple has been dedicated as a House of the Lord. In any case, the wait was really long to get in. The boys were a bit "hangry" by the time we made it to the introductory video before entering the temple, but once inside, everyone was in awe of the beauty of that sacred building. It was GORGEOUS! This building was originally built in the late 1800s/early 1900s. It suffered a fire in 2010 that literally consumed everything but the exterior walls. It had been a beautiful Provo landmark for so long that the church decided to salvage the building and convert it into a temple. It obviously too years for that to happen, not to mention engineering feats! At one point, the building was actually on stilts as they excavated beneath it to build the lower levels. It is inspiring to hear the stories of its construction and completion. Miracles do happen every day! While the exterior is beautiful, the interior is breath taking. They decorated it in a Victorian era style, as it would have been decorated when it was originally built. There are two instruction rooms within the temple where adult members go to make and receive sacred covenants and instructions. They have been intricately painted with a floor to ceiling mural. Each room was painted by a different artist so they are unique. Both rooms are gorgeous, but my favorite was painted by James C. Christensen (a local artist and one of my favorites). The whole experience was incredible - from the wood framed hallways and doorways to the illuminating stained glass windows. We are so glad we had the opportunity to go and can't wait to go back with my brother, Scott, and his family in a couple weeks.