DRAPER, UTAH
Spring has come again to the Salt Lake Valley. In Corner Canyon, site of the new Draper Utah Temple, the scrub oak will soon be leafing out and the grass emerging from winter dormancy. On Friday, March 20, the day of the vernal equinox, President Thomas S. Monson dedicated the temple, a symbol of renewal, recommittal, hope and divine light for some 60,000 Church members in 25 stakes in the southeast section of the valley.
President Monson presided over 12 dedicatory sessions — four each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday — and gave the dedicatory prayer at each session for the new temple, the Church's 129th worldwide, the 12th in Utah and the third of what soon will be four in the Salt Lake Valley.
Weather was clear and sunny on the first two days, uncharacteristically calm on Friday for the normally windswept canyon. On Sunday, skies grew increasingly overcast, culminating in light showers and a brief period of snow as the final session was ending.
Speaking of the spring weekend, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency, told the Church News that the bright sunny day made a perfect backdrop for the sacred occasion. "It was a wonderful feeling that something new was beginning. Inside the temple the same thing happened. It was as though there was sunshine inside, even within the enclosed walls. There is a beautiful feeling that another spot of heavenly light has come to the earth."
Members viewed each session live in the celestial room or on television monitors located throughout the temple. In addition, the 10th and 12th sessions were carried via satellite to members gathered in stake centers in the district, considered extensions of the temple for this occasion. Some stakes outside the temple district also had the option of carrying the dedication transmission in their own meetinghouses.
President Monson opened the first dedicatory session, then stepped outside for the traditional cornerstone ceremony, accompanied by President Henry B. Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency, and President Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve.
The Church president was genial and cheerful during the ceremony, in which mortar was symbolically placed to seal a time capsule within. (Please see related article pertaining to placement of items in the time capsule on page 10.)
"The mortar is ready; the trowels are ready; those who will use them are not trained," he said playfully. "Some of the mortar might fall to the floor, but the whole thing will be taken out and put in by professionals after this dedication is over." The comment drew chuckles from an audience standing outside the temple for the ceremony.
Before placing the mortar, he invited others to do so, including Gracie Awerkamp, 8, Justin Spainhower, 9, and a brother and sister, Christoffer and Katrine Hotvedt, 13 and 7.
When President Monson was looking to select a child to come forward, Christoffer pointed to his sister, so the Church president invited both to come up "as a pair."
He complimented Gracie on her striped sweater and teased Justin, calling him "the boy who's on his knees already getting ready for a mission."
"Let me know when you're ready for a mission," he said to Justin after the boy had placed some mortar in the crevice. "You'll have to wait a year or two."
In a conversation with the Church News after the ceremony, Justin, a member of the Sandy Hills Ward, Sandy Utah Canyon View Stake, said, "I felt the Holy Ghost when I went up and I got to see President Monson up close."
He said he then went to go find his mother, who asked, "Were you the one that President Monson said was ready for a mission?"
"I said, yeah. And then she started hugging me like crazy."
President Monson also praised the cornerstone choir, comprised of 189 teens from stakes in the temple district, and invited the director, Becky Alexander, to come forward.
Giving her the trowel, he said, "Just pretend it is a baton."
Speaking during the individual sessions of the dedication were members of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve, other General Authorities, members of the presidencies of general Church auxiliaries, the temple presidency and the matron and assistants to the matron. Invited to bear his testimony was Randy Okland, owner of Okland Construction Co., builder of the temple.
Elder William R. Walker of the Seventy and director of the Church's Temple Department said the 58,000-square-foot edifice will help reduce crowds at the Jordan River Utah Temple — which has been the busiest temple in the Church for many years. "Leaders of the Church want people to go to the temple without inordinate waiting."
The dedication of the temple has been "absolutely magnificent," he said. "I think the Spirit of the Lord has descended on this whole part of the valley. The saints have come and had a remarkable, wonderful experience."
President Rodolfo C. Franco of the Draper Utah South Mountain Stake and chair of the temple committee, said before the dedication he worried a little about the things he could not control, including the weather.
"Everything just went perfect," he said. "We got a break in the middle of the winter with beautiful spring time on Friday, Saturday and Sunday."
Of special note to him were the sunny, calm conditions on Friday that made it possible for the youth cornerstone choir to perform.
When he thinks of the temple, he will recall "all the people that were blessed" as they attended and participated in the open house and dedication.
And now that the dedication is over, he said, "it really isn't an ending of things, but a beginning of things to come. We really need to go to work now."
He added that two days after the final dedicatory session, the parking lot at the temple was full. "People are working in the temple as we speak," he said.
Rick Crawford, a member of the temple committee in charge of ushering, said the open house and dedication have been a life-changing experience for many.
"We had one person who came through the open house who was so moved by being here," he said. "He had been excommunicated from the Church 10 years before, and when he went through the open house and was seated in the sealing room, it came to him, 'How foolish I've been; I've wasted 10 years of my life.' He had said he was never going to come back in. He went and worked with his bishop and was here for a dedication session. He couldn't stop the tears from coming."
Some of the dedication speakers referred to the history of the Church in the Draper area, a farming community with roots extending back to the days of Brigham Young but now with a mix of high-end homes on the mountainside near the temple, older residences and a burgeoning commercial district in the valley and rapidly vanishing crop and pasture land.
In 1849, President Young assigned Ebenezer Brown, a veteran of the Mormon Battalion, to settle what was then called South Willow Creek with his wife Phoebe and their large, blended family (both had lost spouses to death). They later invited her brother, William Draper III, and his wife Elizabeth to join them with their 11 children. With 20 families in the settlement by 1852, William Draper III was called as presiding elder over a branch of the Church. Some residents wanted to name the settlement Brownsville after Ebenezer, but the name was already taken, so it was named Draperville, later shortened to Draper.
According to local history, Orrin Porter Rockwell, the famous bodyguard to Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, was a frequent visitor to Draper. A paved recreational trail in the city today bears his name.
Draper belonged to the Salt Lake Stake until 1900, when it became part of the Jordan Stake and, after a division in 1927, part of the East Jordan Stake. In 1942, the Mount Jordan Stake was formed, enclosing all of Draper and the adjacent rural communities of Crescent and Granite. That stake was divided in 1973, and today those former boundaries, along with Sandy, comprise the 25 stakes in the temple district.— Gerry Avant, Church News editor, and Sarah Jane Weaver, Church News assistant editor, contributed to this report.
