It Takes a Lot of Work to Build Something Extraordinary

I always love seeing pictures of my church's newly constructed temples. They're special places that are different from where we hold Sunday services; we make sacred covenants there--two-way promises with God--that unite us with our Heavenly Father and bind us to our families for eternity, making even death only a temporary separation. I feel great peace whenever I visit a temple, because it literally is Heaven on Earth--the House of the Lord. That's why my church strives to make every temple the most beautiful building it possibly can.

Today I've been admiring photos of the newest temple in Sapporo, Japan. I love it so much!

Image credit: Mormon Newsroom

Image credit: Mormon Newsroom

Image credit: Mormon Newsroom

It's amazing to think about how much work goes into building a temple. The temple in Salt Lake City, where my church is headquartered, took forty years to build. It was kind of a big deal.

Worth it, though.

In those days, Utah was a pretty isolated place. The arrival of the railroad in the 1860's helped, but for the most part, the temple builders could only use what was already here. So the famous gray stone of the Salt Lake temple walls came from our own mountains, painstakingly transported to the city by way of oxcart, canal, and rail.

The old quarry that supplied the temple stone is only about a twenty-minute drive from my apartment, so a few days ago I went and checked it out.

This is like looking at a baby picture, but for a temple. Awww.

The Temple Quarry path is an easy walk and provides a lot of neat information on interpretive signs. I loved getting some more historical perspective on the things I've always had around me.

Back when the Salt Lake temple was being built, workers drilled long holes into this mountainside, blasted chunks of rock away with dynamite, and shaped the stone by hand before sending the heavy load over twenty miles to the building site in Salt Lake City. There was nothing easy about it. The process today is probably quite different, but the latest pictures from Japan remind me that this principle has never changed: it takes a lot of work to build something extraordinary.

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If you're around the Salt Lake area and want a better appreciation for the temple, or if you're just looking for a nice, easy walk in the mountains, you can learn more about the Temple Quarry trail here.