APEX, N.C. — When Gary Stansbury was confirmed a member of the Church, Bishop Bruce Nay of the Apex Ward commented, "Most people come to the temple by way of the gospel; Gary came to the gospel by way of the temple."
What he meant was that Brother Stansbury investigated the Church and was baptized while in the midst of constructing a House of the Lord, the Raleigh North Carolina Temple.
Construction superintendent for the temple, Brother Stansbury was baptized by Elder Gaylen Johnson on Sept. 29. It was Elder Johnson and his wife, Sister Alaire Johnson, who, as temple missionaries, taught Brother Stansbury the missionary lessons.
"Looking back at the series of events that brought me here to North Carolina, I don't much believe in coincidence," Brother Stansbury reflected during a lunch break from tending to final details the day before the temple dedication. "There are just too many things that fell into place, especially when I consider that the Johnsons were here, with whom I felt so at ease and who were so full of the Spirit."
Though he is from Kansas City, Mo., right next to Independence, "somehow the Church eluded me for 44 years," he said.
In January of this year, his company, Walbridge Aldinger, sent him to St. Louis to supervise construction of a large retail center. When he arrived he received word that the project was delayed and he was to come to North Carolina to build the LDS temple, a project much smaller in scale than those to which he was accustomed.
Nevertheless, he went to work. The building was completed in six months, record time for a temple. It was necessary to hasten to meet the deadline after delays in obtaining city permits put the project behind schedule.
"Bruce Catanzaro, (project manager with the Temple Department) knows my background," he said. "I have a niche in the market for doing the impossible. He asked me if I would get this done by Nov. 4. I told him we could do it."
But the larger miracle is the change that was wrought in Brother Stansbury's life in the meantime. The temple project was to be a temporary assignment until a larger one came along. Early on, he began to look for other work. But by the time he received a substantial offer from a company in Atlanta, he told them to call him in December.
"I had to stay and build this temple," he said. "I needed to be here. And thinking back now, it almost seems that I've kind of been led to learn for 44 years, and now, this [joining the Church] is what I'm supposed to do."
