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| Photo taken yesterday, February 12, 2024. |
Yesterday, I took my daughter to the Provo Temple. It was the very last Monday that the Provo Temple will ever be open. It will be demolished in the coming days. The last day that the Provo Temple officially closes is next Saturday on the 24th of February.
The Provo Temple has alot significance for me. I am so sad that Church is going to demolish it. It was in this Temple that I memorized much of the Endowment during the long 2 month when I was in the Missionary Training Center. I went every week.
After the completion of the Provo Temple in 1972, Hugh Nibley also made weekly temple attendance a priority, not out of a sense of duty, but out of a sincere desire to learn. I think it was Nibley who said that the Provo Temple was his favorite Temple. I read somewhere the following:
In ancient times, God called a prophet named Moses to lead his people through the wilderness. They carried their temple with them and called it the tabernacle. Inside it, God spoke to Moses face to face. When Moses went in to speak to the Lord, "the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses" "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night."Exodus 13:21.
The Provo Temple was designed to refer to this symbolism, to represent both the cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night.
The top two floors have a corridor circling around the entire building, whose inspiration came from a park surrounded by an elliptical roadway in Copenhagen, Denmark. This design provides an easier flow of patrons and makes it almost impossible to get lost.
As I was leaving the Temple yesterday, the sun was coming up over the mountains. I appreciated the symbolism of the Angel Moroni on top of the Temple facing directly southeast at the rising sun.
After the demolition of the Provo Temple, a new one will built. Not on the same foundation as the current Temple but on a whole new foundation that will be farther to the West closer to the street. The property will be flattened out, so the patrons will no longer have to ascend up a hill to get the Temple. It will be an easy, flat path.
This a rendering of the new Provo Temple. We have lost so much symbolism, including the symbolic Angel Moroni pointing eastward to the rising sun.
5 comments:
I hated when they put a Moroni on the Provo and Ogden temples! It was a total misunderstanding and abuse of the symbolism that was built in to them.
These temples were artistic representations of the cloud and the pillar of fire that led the Israelites thru the wilderness (as you mentioned). No need for Moroni there. So sad that people thought they were “ugly”. They didn’t understand.
All of the temples are defiled right now anway. This won't be resolved until Brother Joseph returns to restore everything that he previously restored which the church has abandoned over the years. This is all talked about in the Second Book of Commandments.
What a great and spacious building!
I am sad by the loss of the Provo Temple symbolism. I enjoyed the Provo Temple while in the MTC also. I loved the circling corridor! I felt a sense of togetherness while walking through it with others. Looking at the new version of the Provo Temple fills me with sadness.
People seem more upset about LDS Corp overturning the buildings and not so much about them overturning the doctrine.
They came for the doctrine first. Old men without authority have been taking the wrecking ball to the doctrine for years, often with barely a whimper. When that became completely subverted, all those pretty buildings were just that: pretty buildings. Any meaning you thought they had were already gone by the time the wrecking ball and building cranes showed up.
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