In the dedication of the lower story of the St. George Utah Temple — the first house of the Lord completed in Utah — Brigham Young declared that Latter-day Saints “enjoy privileges that are enjoyed by no one else on the face of the earth. … When I think upon this subject, I want the tongue of seven thunders to wake up the people” (“Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young,” Chapter 41: Temple Ordinances, p. 299).
In speaking to Ensign College students and faculty gathered in the Conference Center Theater for the weekly campus devotional on Tuesday, Jan. 27, Sarah Jane Weaver, Deseret News editor, shared the words of Brigham Young and noted, “Today as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we live in the greatest era of temple building in this dispensation of time.”
The Church now has 213 dedicated temples, with another six scheduled for dedication this year, 56 under construction, one scheduled for groundbreaking and 107 in planning and design.
“Your generation is the spiritual beneficiary of generations of faithful members who sacrificed to build and attend the temple — binding themselves to the Savior through sacred ordinances and covenants,” Weaver told listeners. “But do we need the ‘tongue of seven thunders’ to wake us up as a people to these grand blessings?”
For close to three decades, Weaver circumvented the globe as a reporter and editor for the Church News, witnessing and recording the blessings that come to faithful, covenanted Latter-day Saints as they worship in the house of the Lord.
“Your generation will not need to sell your belongings or travel long distances to attend the temple — as did the early Saints in Nauvoo or later generations in locations across the world,” Weaver observed. “But you will be called on to sacrifice for the temple in other ways during your journeys.”
She then shared examples of Latter-day Saints she had met from around the world who sacrificed to attend the temple.
Journeys of sacrifice to the house of the Lord
In 1963, Elder Benjamin Sinjoux, age 10, and his family were part of a group of 64 Church members who traveled from the island of Tahiti to the Hamilton New Zealand Temple.
“Most in the group had saved for many years to be able to make the nearly 5,000-mile round trip journey,” Weaver noted.
Elder Sinjoux recalled that the hills surrounding the Hamilton temple were shrouded in thick fog, making the temple look as if it were floating. As they arrived, every member of the group knelt down on the bus and offered a prayer of gratitude.
Weaver noted, “These pioneer members were the first members from French Polynesia to ever do temple work.”
Elder J. Christopher Lansing, a former mission president and director of Church hosting, shared with Weaver how his parents, Doris Rogers and Theodore Herbert Lansing, joined the Church in 1954 in Richmond, Virginia.
Their family traveled from Virginia before interstate highways and in a car without air conditioning to the nearest temple in Salt Lake City more than 2,000 miles away.
The cross-country road trip was fraught with trials, and when they finally arrived in Salt Lake City, Elder Lansing told Weaver, his father kept circling the block around the temple.
“It was the first time I had ever seen my dad cry,” Elder Lansing said.
Weaver also recalled interviewing Nazaré Negreiros and her mother, Delzuita Guerreiro, members of the Church from Manaus — an isolated city in northern Brazil surrounded by rivers and the Amazon rain forest. In 2001, the two joined a group of Latter-day Saints on a caravan to the São Paulo Brazil Temple when their bus was assaulted by robbers.
And yet, Sister Negreiros refused to complain. “We were very happy,” she told Weaver. “We had reached the temple.”
Today, temples are located within two hours travel time of most Latter-day Saints. “It is a blessing that we should not take for granted,” Weaver said.
Weaver assured listeners on Tuesday, “These buildings are gifts to each of us from a loving Heavenly Father who is providing a place for us to find light amid darkness and peace amid contention — a place where those seeking Jesus Christ will find Him.”
