Reading 1 – Wilford Woodruff
records: We walked along until we came to this Temple Block. It was covered
with sagebrush. There was no mark to indicate that God ever intended to place
anything there. But while walking along Brother Brigham stopped very suddenly.
He stuck his cane in the ground and said, “Right here will stand the great
Temple of our God.” We drove a stake in the place indicated by him, and that
particular spot is situated in the middle of the Temple site. (Wilford
Woodruff, Collected Discourses, Vol. 5, delivered on April 6, 1992)
Reading 1A - Elder John A.
Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve said, “The pioneers were hungry and weary;
they needed food and rest; a hostile desert looked them in the face; yet in the
midst of such physical requirements they turned first to the building of
temples and to the spiritual food and strength that the temples provide” (in
Conference Report, Apr. 1943, 38).
Reading 2 – Brigham Young said: I have determined, by the
help of the Lord and this people, to build him a house. You may ask, “Will he
dwell in it?” He may do just as he pleases; it is not my prerogative to dictate
to the Lord. But we will build him a house, that, if he pleases to pay us a
visit, he may have a place to dwell in, or if he should send any of his
servants, we may have suitable accommodations for them. I have built myself a
house, and the most of you have done the same, and now, shall we not build the
Lord a house? (JD, vol.1, p. 376)
Reading 2A - President Howard W.
Hunter taught: “We … emphasize the personal blessings of temple worship and the
sanctity and safety that are provided within those hallowed walls. It is the
house of the Lord, a place of revelation and of peace. As we attend the temple,
we learn more richly and deeply the purpose of life and the significance of the
atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us make the temple, with temple
worship and temple covenants and temple marriage, our ultimate earthly goal and
the supreme mortal experience. …
“May you let the meaning and beauty and peace of the temple
come into your everyday life more directly” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1994,
118; or Ensign, Nov. 1994, 87–88).
Reading 3: Brigham Young said, “I
want to see the temple built in a manner that it will endure through the
Millennium. This is not the only temple we shall build; there will be hundreds
of them built and dedicated to the Lord. … And when the Millennium is over, … I
want that temple still to stand as a proud monument of the faith, perseverance
and industry of the Saints of God in the mountains, in the nineteenth century”
(Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [1941], 395).
Reading 4 – D&C 97:10-12
Reading 5 - When Jeffrey R.
Holland was president of Brigham Young University, he compared the building of
our lives to the building of the Salt Lake Temple: “The prestigious Scientific
American referred to [the Salt Lake Temple] as a ‘monument to Mormon
perseverance.’ And so it was. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat. The best things
are always worth finishing. ‘Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?’ (1 Corinthians
3:16.) Most assuredly we are. As long and laborious as the effort may seem, we
must keep shaping and setting the stones that will make our accomplishments ‘a
grand and imposing spectacle.’ We must take advantage of every opportunity to
learn and grow, dream dreams and see visions, work toward their realization,
wait patiently when we have no other choice, lean on our sword and rest a
while, but get up and fight again. … We are laying the foundation of a great
work—our own inestimable future” (However Long and Hard the Road [1985], 127).
Reading 6 - Priddy Meeks wrote of
conditions: "My family went several
months without a satisfying meal of victuals. I went sometimes a mile up Jordan
to a patch of wild roses to get the berries to eat which I would eat as rapidly
as a hog, stems and all. I shot hawks and crows and they ate well. I would go
and search the mire holes and find cattle dead and fleece off what meat I could
and eat it. We used wolf meat, which I thought was good. I made some wooden
spades to dig seagoes [Sego Lily] with, but we could not supply our wants.
"We had to exert ourselves to
get something to eat. I would take a grubbing-hoe and a sack and start by
sunrise in the morning and go, I thought six miles before coming to where the
thistle roots grew, and in time to get home I would have a bushel and sometimes
more thistle roots. And we would eat them raw. I would dig until I grew faint
and sit down and eat a root, and then begin again. I continued this until the
roots began to fail." (Great Basin Kingdom, p49)
Isaiah 35:1
Reading 7 - At the general
conference held on 6 October 1849, [Brigham Young] assigned several members of
the Twelve, along with newly called missionaries, to serve foreign missions.
They accepted these calls even though they would leave behind their families,
their new homes, and many unfinished tasks. Erastus Snow and several elders
opened missionary work in Scandinavia, while Lorenzo Snow and Joseph Toronto
traveled to Italy. Addison and Louisa Barnes Pratt returned to Addison’s former
field of labor in the Society Islands. (Our Heritage, pages 84–86)
Reading 8 - On August 25, 1847,
the first contingent of the Mormon Battalion, which had been previously
disbanded, camped two miles from Fort Sutter on the American River in
California. They were hoping to receive news from Brigham Young as to how to
proceed.
Two days later, Captain John Brown
arrived from Salt Lake to buy cattle and feed for the Saints. He carried
instructions from President Young that the Battalion members should remain in
California for the winter, to work and earn what money they could.
These Battalion members offered
their services to John Sutter. With this windfall of manpower, Sutter
contracted with his carpenter, James Marshall, to build a sawmill fifty miles
up the south fork of the American River.
James Marshall took the Mormons up
the river and together they constructed Sutter's sawmill.
On the morning of January 24, 1848,
blasting some rock to create the mill race, while Marshall was inspecting the work,
he saw something glitter in the water.
When he showed the nuggets to the
members of the Battalion working on the mill, they were not impressed. They
continued working at their tasks.
Henry Bigler, a Battalion member,
went out searching on his own time and found flecks of gold and later a nugget.
When many wanted to move the Saints to California, Brigham
Young said that the Salt Lake Valley was "a good place to make Saints, and
it is a good place for Saints to live; it is the place the Lord has appointed,
and we shall stay here, until He tells us to go somewhere else."
Doctrine and Covenants 64:33-34
