😮 HUGE CROWDS at Latter-day Saint Temple • Visitor WOWED

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] hey everyone my name is David from 52 churches in 52 weeks if you're new to the channel in the past we would spend a full year visiting a new church each week most recently just due to a number of different factors I've really been digging into the Church of Jesus Christ a Latter-Day Saints especially on my own faith walk uh but especially after Temple open house visits and lessons that spoke to me through the symbolism inside so for my very first temple tour in Bentonville Arkansas I I found the importance of family then the Oram Utah temple uh the theme of growth was so strong and the most recent Temple open house I made was this historic iconic St George temple and I found this absolutely fascinating especially with the whole story of the foundation and how they're able to build that and how that translates uh in our own faith walks as a result I received a lot of feedback and a lot of requests to travel back out to Utah to attend another Pioneer era Temple the man Utah temple for its recent open house and boy am I grateful to have made this visit so a little backstory on the Manti Utah temple so it was uh they broke ground on this in 1877 by Brigham Young himself and it took him 11 years to build and it is just insane architecture especially for it being in the middle of Utah out in the middle of nowhere essentially and they dedicated it in 1888 and since that time over the past 135 plus years there has there has only been 3 days 3 days where the general public could go inside to tour it and that was in 1985 because they only had a 3-day open house so as of this recording this past weekend was the very first time since uh they would hold a open house and for the next for a total of 3 weeks this will be going on so after learning about that I had drop everything and make sure I could make this visit so drove shuttle bus got on a plane ubered found a rental car and got out there to make this visit happen and wow people showed up in droves so I'll share what the lines were like uh also I want to talk a little bit about what I saw inside especially with artwork and the murals inside and one artist that had a huge influence on this Temple was manura tiker and after learning about this artist my goodness I need to know more so I've been digging into her history her backstory now and especially her contributions uh with the murals inside the world room for this Temple so uh one last thing I just want to thank everyone especially after my St George temple for all the prayers and uh a strange thing happened to me not too long ago where I had a breakthrough so I'll share more about that in a little bit uh but first uh like I usually do with the recipe for my videos uh I'll show what it looked like inside uh as always just because this is a temple this is a house of the Lord uh you're not allowed to take photos or video inside uh the church Newsroom will provide video for media Outlets so I'm going to use that but I'll be back in a moment to share a recap from this unique visit [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so my first thought after this visit was I need to take a deep breath and just breathe because out of all the visits that I've made for the various churches that I visited and even some of these Temple open houses uh this one may rank as one of the most impressive visits that I've made and coming from someone who's not a member of the church who is more of an outsider um like with this video I'm not going to be able to do justice uh for everything that I saw that I witnessed and that I learned and I I've shown this in other videos typically after a church visit or some of the temple open house visits I've done um I I'll write down some ideas and some thoughts just so I can get my brain together and for this visit I have up to about 10 different pages that I wrote down and I like I don't like to read off a script or anything because I don't think that's that's real and authentic but it is one of those things where there's just so much that I'm trying to to get together and I'm going to try to do my best to communicate that I'm sure I'll have a few mistakes just because I'm not you know a member of the church so if I do please forgive me but I think for this portion of the video I'm going to try to split this up into three different parts one I want to compare the lines and the crowds with the Manti Temple open house to what I've experienced from a Protestant perspective and also witnessing some of the crowds I've seen at a Roman Catholic experience that could be comparable towards this open house because a Manti Temple open house again people showed up in droves and I I think with this channel I have a very unique perspective to kind of talk on the Latter-Day Saint Protestant and Roman Catholic uh just the the reaction towards a big event and what that represents for the th those individual faiths second I'm going to talk a little bit about my tour and just the various rooms that I visited and what that represented and then third I'm just going to talk about my own personal uh spiritual experience inside and what I experienced walking in what I experienced inside and what I'm taking away from this visit so that maybe I can uh kind of show a light in the darkness uh moving forward for whatever path is next uh especially with this Channel or for your own personal life so that we that way we can bring Christ out into the world and make that a stronger a much more empowering uh type of experience for everyone in their own faith walk so man Utah has a population of 3, 539 people like it is in the middle of nowhere and when you're driving into Manti the very first like you're driving on this highway in the rural Country and all of a sudden you like when I was driving there like there's a lot of cars and as I was getting closer suddenly you see this building start to emerge and obviously it's the temple but as you get closer and closer then you start seeing these goldish walls the with the cream color come more into view it's sitting at Top This null I guess it's called The Temple Hill and the closer that you get to it the more you starts seeing the crowds and this just absolutely floored me so it looks like a mix between a fortress a castle and a cathedral it is something else and I had to do some research what what type of Architecture is this so I learned it was called castellated Gothic architecture so it's very unique because it has like these battlements these uh these space squares kind of like this outline I know that's terrible so please forgive me on that but it looks exactly kind of like a castle so it looks like something where it could fend off in assault for a battle but then you see the windows and the windows are absolutely magnificent it's a masterpiece looking from the outside so it's it's like the it's fortified but it's elegant so again from the outside it looks like it could it's it's very protected but that's not the purpose of this building this purpose of the building is to serve as a house of the Lord a place that brings Peace So that whole theme of protection in peace was kind of the the two words that are at the Forefront of my mind throughout this whole visit so it I had a tour guide so it took me a while to find some parking because of all the people that had showed up for this so here's a little weird thing because I haven't seen a crowd like this since I uh went to the Asbury Revival uh last year in February of 20123 anytime I bring up Asbury Revival to my Latter-Day Saint friends no one's heard of this in Protestant circles this was probably one of the biggest things that has happened in the last few decades because what happened at the Asbury Revival it it's in Wilmore Kentucky it's a town of about 6,000 people and it's a little colleg town and they had a college chapel prayer service on a Sunday night and it was only supposed to last an hour but the students kept praying they kept worshiping and this service lasted overnight and by the time that then all of a sudden after like the third day of non-stop worship um suddenly it went viral and there was a big um there's a lot of excitement because the Holy Spirit was in this Auditorium so people from all over the country flocked towards this Auditorium so I got there on day 10 and what I understood the next day they had to close down the town so they were estimating that about 15 to 25,000 people had showed up that day well then I went to uh the benedic tees of Mary queen of Apostles in gawer Missouri and latterday Saints obviously have a very um close uh history with the state of Missouri especially with Independence Jackson County Latter-Day St movement history and all that but in gawer Missouri the Roman Catholics they they had this nun Convent and their foundress sister Willamina Lancaster they were Exum consuming her body from her grave to move the body inside but when they were doing so four years after her death they found that her body was incorrupt with with very little Decay as a result an incorruptibility in Roman Catholic circles is considered a miracle of sorts so people descended on this little town of about 1,500 to see the body of sister William so that Memorial Day Weekend the sisters estimated that 25,000 people showed up for that I show up the next weekend the crowds weren't anything like that but still another crazy crowd experience well then I get to the Manti Temple and um I had visited the St George temple and I was told that the last two Saturdays they averaged 30,000 people each Saturday for those weekends I get to the Manti Temple open house and I'm just kind of like I think there may be more people here than what happened with the the Protestant Revival and then also the Roman Catholic happening with the incorrupt body of sister Willamina so I'm very curious to see how many people showed up for this open house one of the things that I was really impressed with is so with these lines people were waiting in lines for about 2 to 4 hours and it wasn't an 8h hour wait like I had with the asber Revival because people kept moving the Asbury Revival you just were stuck because people would stay in there for an hour here people just kept going and going and going so I I'm so curious to see what the final numbers are on this because the Asbury Revival the sister Willam minina happening those both were national news headline stories with a latterday saint with this Manti open house I don't think this is uh national news but it should be especially with these crowds because there was just so much excitement from people and just people helping each other out I mean even the kids were having a blast just rolling down the Temple Hill having an absolute blast of it all so again just very unique and just the excitement was just so palpable anywhere that you went before I get into the tour uh if you're like me you're not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ the latterday Saints temples are different than meeting houses or Wards or chapels that are reserved for Sunday Services temples are considered houses of the Lord that try to reaffirm the teachings of Jesus Christ through marriage through baptisms for the dead or for various ceremonies to unite families together for eternity so this Pioneer era Temple the architect was William fulam and it was the Third Temple completed in the state of Utah also the third that was completed west of the Mississippi my understanding now is there's 28 temples in Utah now alone that are either completed under construction or are going through a renovation so for the Manti Temple renovation uh president Nelson mentioned that they were trying to preserve the Pioneer craftsmanship uh that Pioneer spirit and also just to maintain the character inside Temple so when I got there the lines were crazy um you know cars were everywhere so the the amount of volunteers I can't say enough good things about the volunteers for this and how they organized this so well so uh Scott and Monica were my tour guides uh we took a drive up uh to kind of start the whole tour and one thing that I was impressed with is just the amount of people that are trying to help each other uh there was one instance uh where where some elderly were waiting outside and it was it was cold not extremely cold but cold enough and a number of volunteers were trying to find ways to get the elderly inside to keep them warm I've heard other stories where members of the Relief Society also looked for ways to help with those in line by getting them blankets or warm items so the amount of volunteer work and just the heart for others uh was something that was really exemplified uh that I got to see and also got to hear about when we got inside uh the very first thing you come across is the recommend desk and one thing that I've noticed at several Temple open houses that I've seen now it and it's not like this at all of them from what I was told but there's often a picture of Jesus Christ as a shepherd and with this particular one he was holding a lamb going through this dark Valley and the other sheep were kind of falling close behind so again this would just gave me that that theme that I kept seeing throughout of the protection the protection of the building but then the protection of Jesus Christ and then inside the temple you have that peace with Jesus Christ he's giving that peace to that little lamb so that was the very first thing that we saw then we went through the annex and this is where you know in the Bible it talks about in my house are are many rooms that's kind of what it was like here so we followed along this huge line as people were coming in for this tour and I I think one thing that I came away really impressed with is just the amount of attention to detail especially these early Pioneers had for this building because there was just so many little aspects that they were adding for the mill work for the ch Bears involved just with the texture even of the walls uh the day before I had gone to Cove Fort and it was a really interesting experience just to see what those early Pioneers what their living conditions were so to take that and compare in contrast what they were building with these magnificent Masterpiece rooms inside the temple with the ceiling rooms and everything else especially with the hallways too um you just can't help but Wonder with the tools that were available to them how they're able to complete this so that takes me to what president hinley himself called an engineering Marvel on both ends of the Manti Temple is an absolute magnificent Masterpiece of a feat because you have two spiral staircases freestanding with no Central support I was trying to find examples of this and apparently there's only three in the United States one is in a building in Washington DC the other two are on both ends of the Manti Temple so on one end it's it's going around clockwise and then the other corner is going counterclockwise not only that but I guess there's this black walnut type of wood that they use and it's like there's no joints it's complet completely smooth and it goes up I want to say five or six stories and it's you're walking up of this and later we were walking down and it's not small like you can fit four to five people walking up and down the spiral staircase just Absolut like I'm how did they do this like it's a miracle to see this because like the tools that they had available to them in the 18 7s to 1880s like it's hard to even do now so the fact that there aren't any other examples other than three in the United States is just something else so we kept going on the tour and uh we eventually ended up in the Assembly Hall and the Assembly Hall I was fascinated with in the St George temple cuz it is just this massive room on one of the very top um I want to say this was the fifth Story or so and just you can't help but gawk at this so all the pews are white um this one that was different from the St George temple was it had a little bit more carpet in this one compared to the other one really unique room that we went into was where it had the the cast iron baptismal font and this was different than any other baptism for the dead type of room I've ever been a part of because because inside um you have the same type of mold that was used for The Oxen for the St George temple just this very classic look but the murals were what really stood out to me because it was from another time so there was several pictures of baptisms going on on one wall uh you had Jesus Christ being baptized by John the Baptist but then he also on another wall had Joseph Smith and Oliver cowry with their baptisms and then there was another baptism from The Book of Mormon from a story that I'm not sure which one it was from and then also on the walls was various scriptures either from the New Testament or the Book of Mormon that were up there as well as the tour continued uh we eventually entered the creation room the Garden Room and the world room so I guess this is kind of the pathway for the endowment if I understand that correctly but what I really appreciate is like each room is a masterpiece in itself with the different artists and what they were able to accomplish in each room so the very first room was a creation room so this was made by CCA Christian sin in 1886 so it sounds like this is the oldest mural in Church of Jesus Christ the latterday Saints Temple history right now and one of the difficult the difficult things with this is he he had a painted on the plaster of the wall so as the years have progressed a lot of this plaster has deteriorated over time so I guess they noticed this in the 1980s and eventually when the 2020 renovation started um they they decided that they were going to do their best to preserve it so they brought in some artists who essentially touched it up with the different type of chemicals that they had and it was just painstakingly difficult because they had to touch up like an inch at a time almost like with a Q-tip from what it sounds like but over time they were able to uh bring this back to its original form I guess from what it sounds like in one section of the room there's the miral has some whales in the background and it didn't they didn't even know those were there until they touched it up so absolutely fascinating from there we walked into the Garden Room and this was created by Robert L Shepard in the 1940s uh I was told this room just does not get enough credit considering the other two rooms that are bookmarked between it uh but this essentially represents the Garden of Eden so uh you have like a lion and a lamb and just all kinds of birds and creatures inside and there was one creature in particular that really caught my attention that was very coincidental I'll touch on that later but from there we walked into the world room so even the carpet changes because the Garden Room had a Green carpet the world room would then go into a yellow carpet so we had to walk upstairs and this is the room that was designed by minurva tyer so when plans for renovations started uh there was where that minurva Tiger's murals were going to be permanently removed and that created a huge uproar because with as I learned more about minurva tiger she is an absolute Legend among Latter-Day Saints especially from an artistic standpoint and just some of the artwork that I've seen at first I wasn't impressed because as a guy I just you know Art's not really my thing but the more that I hear and learn about her the more impactful and appreciative I become of her work because when she got she was the first female to be selected to do a temple mural but on top of that she was a 59y old grandmother when she took this job and it was not even job she was volunteering and so she had one assistant and basically it's the size of a barn she has to make this mural depicting the world and she had 23 days to complete it 23 days so it's it's a testament of her faith of her dedication and her talent and the room I'm going to do do my best to explain this so on the one side of the room it starts with the Tower of Babel there's all kinds of pictures of Joseph being sold into slavery there's Moses with the Ten Commandments and he sees um the Israelites you know make the golden calf just all these images from the Old Testament meanwhile on the other side uh you have it starting with the Orient the Far East and then they see this Parade of Nations and all just very rulers Crusaders everything and it's fascinating because I didn't even recognize at the bottom there's these dark figures in the foreground and that's supposed to depict the poor and you don't even realize that they're the poor the way that her Artistry works and as this Parade of Nations continues it gets to Christopher Columbus ready to sail across the Atlantic both of these images is combined towards the center and in the center is this Native American and above the Native American is the American West it's the land of Zion so everything is going towards this where we are in this time period so again with maner at tyer people were so defensive of her artwork and again it's just a testament of what type of artist that she was especially with her faith so then we entered the terrestrial room and again I'm not a member so endowments are still a little different to me just because I've never witnessed them uh but from when I was told this was the very last Temple that had live endowments with people performing them and so they brought in two large monitors now uh so now it's all going to be you know done with production there they can add different languages if they need to so that'll be helpful for people that are not englishspeaking for the Manti Temple uh but yeah with this particular room there's no murals but there's this Elegance the beauty inside was still something to behold and then from there we finally walked into the celestial room it was packed in there I understand you know typically that's where you're going to find peace with a Celestial room absolutely beautiful man people were excited to be in this room I've really been doing a lot of thinking about this because protection and peace has just been just stuck in my head ever since this visit and you know this part of the video I'm probably just going to word vomit and ramble for a while if you want to stick around great if not totally understand um but uh just just with my own personal Journey on this I've I mentioned this in the St George temple open house video that I did about a month or two ago where I was asking for prayers and I can't say enough good things and and thank you for all of those that sent me Facebook messages or Instagram messages or in the YouTube comments um means a lot I don't deserve it but thank you very much for that kindness and generosity of heartfelt messages um I me mentioned that video I've been going to my local Ward uh for two to three months at this point other than a few weekend excursions for some other Church visits and one thing that I really appreciate is I see just how important the church is for some people how that that that nness is so important and I've made a number of friends um and again I've been more close to this church Community than any other that I've been a part of and it's just like what does that say about um non-lds churches at this Point uh just because there's just so much Church entertainment um a few weeks ago I went to Cincinnati Ohio to attend Crossroads Church it is this very loud church entertainment uh allabout growth type of church with you know concerts and coffee and after and it was interesting because the whole reason I went there was just due to controversy they had a sermon skit not well thought out and it completely backfired on them and it was weird to see the reaction from many Protestant Christians because there was just so much there's such an attack on other brothers and sisters in Christ and I just one of the difficulties I have is seeing the Bible weaponized so often and it's gotten to the point now where I really don't consider myself Protestant anymore which is really weird to say and I'm still kind of wrestling with that so I don't really know to put a label on it I don't really know what I am anymore I'm kind of just saying Outsider or Christ follower and the more I look into the Church of Jesus Christ the latter day of saints the weird thing is I see the fruits you know that's where the dream lehi's dream just speaks so much to me because you see this amazing fruit and how you treat others and just the good that comes from people's lives from that it's like I see the fruits but I'm I I'm still I I can't see the seed that it came from which is the Book of Mormon so that was a component for me that to wrestle with and it's like when I say that I'm not trying to challenge any anyone's Faith that's just on my own spir my spiritual journey on this but then something happened so I'm still kind of wrestling with this so at my look award I've made a number of friends can't say enough good things and uh one one friend I won't say his name and I'm not going to share his story due due to privacy but he invited me to his house we had dinner and I just remember him sharing his story and the thing that stuck out most was how he was paying attention to heavily father opening doors and closing doors and that just stuck with me and it's interesting because then in my own life like I'm praying to God like I want to do your will open doors for me and close doors whatever happens I'm going to do your will and most recently I suffered a number of setbacks just everything just seemed to fall apart and just kind of like all right where I need to recalibrate I need to reenter myself where am I going next and one of the interesting things is what happened about two weeks ago Sun Sunday March 10th 2024 and one of the setbacks I had is I had a bit of an injury so I couldn't really get around too much so I'm trying to loosen myself up and I decide you know what I'm going to take a a morning walk so I'm taking my morning walk walk if you've been paying attention to my channel you'll know red cardinal birds appear to me at very coincidental times and this morning another one appeared and it was the first time in ages for me I think the last one that I saw that was was probably last summer right before my first temple open house visit so that was shocking to me um and again this it sounds ridiculous I know but when I saw that I'm praying hey to to God prayer walk all right what do you have for me what can I do how can I be a servant of God so I got home dressed up to go to my sacrament meeting service great service and then my friend asked me hey do you want to participate and help out with Elders Quorum with me and I'm like all right yeah let's do it and he shared um the cornerstones that you need for the church and for your faith so obviously Jesus Christ was number one for your Cornerstone then you know prophets and Plan of Salvation And in the back of my head I'm just like scripture scripture scripture scripture but the introvert in me didn't want to say it out loud and then finally someone said scripture and that's kind of where been where I've been stuck so I got home later so so then I you know I helped out with Elders quum talked a little bit about my faith Journey uh it was a really good discussion and but in the back of my mind I get home my mind is still ruminating doors are closing things are falling apart and I'm trying to get to sleep and I just cannot get to sleep and it 3 to four hours I was probably up and I've had a number of comments say you know just pray and ask The Book of Mormon is true and I've done that a few times um nothing happened you know this night though um I can't get to sleep why not I'll get on my knees I'll pray one a.m. what have you and suddenly This Feeling Hit me and it was this sensation of Peace like I need to read the book of Mormon to find peace so I don't know if that's a witness of the Holy Spirit moment to me it felt like it and next thing I know just peace completely calm fell right to sleep and afterwards I had to do a little research like what do you feel like if you have a witness of the Holy Spirit type of moment so I've heard all kinds of different experiences like an Elation some excitement and then I also read something where people do have Peace So my next point that I'm trying or the point I'm trying to make is with the Book of Mormon I found something really shocking because it felt kind of like Peter walking on water where wait a minute there could maybe be some some something here some Foundation that I can step on where I don't fall through and to me having been a Protestant my entire life that feels bizarre to say out loud so one thing that was really fascinating with the Manti Temple is I was going in there for peace I had that at just stuck in my my heart for what I was going to find here what I didn't recognize is there was also going to be this sense of protection so when we walked in the recommend desk you see Jesus Christ holding this lamb it's this protection and peace all in one image we go in the creation room and then the Garden Room and this is where I need some people's help if you're going to be doing the Manti Temple open house because on the left side there look to me to be this red bird is it a cardinal what is a cardinal doing in the Garden of Eden in the Manti Temple open house I saw that and again I'm praying and the next thing that we do we move into the world room the minurva tiger murals and that's when my tour guide is telling me about my nerva tiger she took 23 days to paint this entire huge area and just how Latter-Day Saints are so defensive of her work just due to her Talent her faith and her dedication and um you know the funny thing uh I I visited the Church History Museum a few months ago and the one image that just spoke to me I have it on my phone now is this picture of Jesus returning but it's in a bright cardinal red robe and that image so it's it's derived from Isaiah 63 verses 1 through3 and I just had never seen a picture of Jesus in an all red robe before and you know do the tour see all the prophets and presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ the latterday of Saints next room wanders into is this minurva tiger Art Exhibit and I had seen one picture of hers where she did this creation of Jesus with a lamb peace and protection but the very first image that you walk in is again her interpretation of Christ in the red robe so that whole color the symbolism is just drawn to I'm just drawn to it right now protection and peace uh those were the two big themes I took away from the Manti Temple and you know no matter what happens where where doors open or doors close uh no matter where this journey goes next you know whatever dark valleys we're driving through I think that's something that we can impart on whatever paths lie ahead as we Forge ahead for God's plan for us

Channel: 52 Churches in 52 Weeks

Views: 132,455

Keywords: manti temple, scripture central, cwic media, hello saints, david alexander, christian homestead, ward radio, book of mormon central, stick of joseph, followhim, unshaken, scriptureplus, watcher palmer, mormon stories, church news, byu, worldwide relief society, connor boyack, kirtland temple, logan temple, minerva teichert, book of mormon, latter-day life hacker, manti temple open house, saints unscripted, mormon book reviews, president nelson, 52 churches in 52 weeks, utah

Id: IAKncmigCCM

Length: 42min 32sec (2552 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 23 2024