"We turn our faces from celebration of the past to celebration of the future," President Gordon B. Hinckley said just prior to breaking ground for a new Church assembly building in Salt Lake City amidst celebration of the Pioneer Sesquicentennial on July 24.
The building, which will occupy most of the block immediately north of Temple Square, will include an assembly hall that will seat 21,000 and will be used for general conferences and other meetings and activities.President Hinckley, who presided over the groundbreaking, was assisted by President Thomas S. Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency, and President James E. Faust, second counselor. They were accompanied by their wives, Sisters Marjorie Hinckley, Frances Monson and Ruth Faust.
Also participating were several members of the Quorum of the Twelve and other General Authorities.
President Monson and President Faust spoke during the ceremonies as did Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt and Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini. Music was provided by a Pioneer brass band and a women's chorus comprised of missionaries serving on Temple Square.
Also attending were government and business dignitaries, members of the media, and hundreds of spectators who gathered in what was a parking lot near the old site of the Mormon Handicraft store.
President Hinckley said he has been told by architects and the builder that the assembly building will be completed in time for the April general conference in the year 2000.
The decision to construct the building was announced by President Hinckley during the April 1996 general conference. However, in remarks at the groundbreaking ceremonies, he said the general concept for the building was being discussed in the highest councils of the Church as early as 1940.
"You may be interested to know that back in 1940 - I'm old enough to remember that, I was there in the Church Office Building at that time - the Brethren very seriously considered what we have now determined to do," President Hinckley said.
He spoke under a bowery-like canopy with brush covering a log-framed structure in ceremonies that began under a light rain and continued under the sweltering heat of a typical Salt Lake City summer afternoon.
Continuing, President Hinckley said: "They had the dream of this. They projected that it should stand on this block. . . . That building, as they envisioned it, would have seated 10,000 on the main floor and 9,000 in a circular balcony."
The opinion prevailed, however, that the Church could never accommodate in a single building all who wished to attend meetings, and that it would be better to pursue electronic means to reach the members of the Church, President Hinckley said.
He acknowledged that the Church couldn't possibly build a facility large enough to house all its members. "They're too widely scattered and they're too numerous . . . and that's a wonderful blessing," he said. "But we can accommodate far more than we're now able to accommodate."
He said it will be a beautiful and distinguished building. "I'm grateful to say that through the great faith of the Latter-day Saints, we have the means with which to build it. I hope we will not waste a single penny. I hope we will be prudent and wise and careful and that the outcome of all this will be a structure of which we can be proud and of which I believe Heavenly Father will be proud.
"His name will be spoken frequently within this hall. His name will be worshipped, as will the name of His beloved Son, our Savior and our Redeemer. And the voices which speak in this hall, this enlarged hall, will be carried across the world to the nations of the earth as this Church rolls on and continues to grow from its present membership of 10 million scattered in more than 160 nations to numbers beyond our ability to calculate and to places beyond our ability to guess at this time."
He said of the project, "It will be built as well as we know how to build in this season of the history of the world and I hope that it will stand for as long as the earth lasts and serve the purpose of the Kingdom of God."
Following his remarks, President Hinckley offered a prayer of dedication. Then he and his counselors, using replicas of pioneer shovels, turned soil prepared for the formal breaking of the ground. President Hinckley turned the first three scoops and then looked up, smiled at the audience and said, "There's the basement." He called 6-year-old Sharisa Pergler of Farmington out of the audience and helped her turn a shovel full of soil. Then others in attendance, including more children, had a chance to take a shovel and participate in the groundbreaking.
President Monson, in his remarks, said the new assembly building has been "well thought out." He declared, "I know that the idea has been in the mind of President Gordon B. Hinckley for a number of years."
He said he sees in the new building not just a place where more people can hear the word of God, but also where they can enjoy the performing arts. "I envision pageants. I envision festivals. I envision individuals from far and near performing for a very large audience."
After speaking of the many benefits the new building will provide for years to come, he quoted the English essayist John Ruskin: "Wherefore, when we build let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think as we lay stone on stone that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred, because our hands have touched them; and men will say, as they look upon the labour and wrought substances of them: `See, this our fathers did for us.' "
President Faust spoke of the concern the leaders of the Church have for the many people who have a desire to attend general conference but cannot be seated in the current Tabernacle. He noted that many of them gather on the Temple Square grounds to listen, many traveling "from far corners of the earth without a realistic expectation of being able to worship together and be in the presence of the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve and other General Authorities of the Church."
He added, "Many of those have been young people and it is upon their shoulders that the future of this Church will rest."
President Faust recalled that Bishop Robert Taylor Burton, great-great grandfather of current Presiding Bishop H. David Burton, was serving in the presiding bishopric during the completion and dedication on Oct. 9, 1875, of the Tabernacle on Temple Square.
He said, "We are grateful to Bishop Robert Taylor Burton's great-great grandson, the current Presiding Bishop of the Church, and his counselors for the excellent service and capacity in connection with the temporal affairs of the Church, including this projected assembly building."
