Virtual Temple Tour Part III: A Covenant People

To receive an “Endowment” is to be given a gift. For those attending the temple the gift is the power and promise of the blessings of Jesus Christ. Both men and women participate in the same ordinances, and therefore have the same opportunities for receiving the same blessings. Although Priesthood authority in the LDS Church is conferred to men only, the temple contains the concentration of its eternal power. “A person may have authority given to him, or a sister to her,” former LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith (Relief Society Magazine, 1959) wrote, “to do certain things in the Church that are binding and absolutely necessary for our salvation, such as the work that our sisters do in the House of the Lord.” Because the temple Endowment is considered a gift of heavenly powers, it is usually done before a Latter-day Saint goes on a proselytizing mission, gets married, or when society considers them reaching the age of an adult.

Before continuing on with temple activity, participants gather for a short time in a chapel. Depending on the amount of time needed, technical instructions will be given, families for weddings assembled, hymns sung, and individuals might read Scriptures. Once ready to move forward, guides will lead the worshipers to ordinance rooms.

Buenos Aires Argentina Temple chapel

The initiation ceremonies were done for individuals, but the Endowment is with a group split into one side women and the other men. Endowment ritual themes are broken into progressions, with older temples having separate instruction rooms to signify the differences. Older “Pioneer” temples have a Creation Room, Garden Room, World Room, and Celestial Room, among others. Often they have painted walls to match the ritual and instructional themes. Smaller and more recent temples usually only have one or two instruction rooms that restrict movement. This can speed up the ceremony and accommodate a more condensed ritual that includes film presentations. Live actors that dramatized certain parts of the ceremonies have become a thing of the past. Despite the changes and increasingly pared down ritual, the basics remain the same.

Virtual Temple Tour Part II: Entering Sacred Space

Many temples, although not all of them, have a wingless golden angel statue at the top steeples blowing a soundless trumpet. Some have mistaken it for the Angel Gabriel who visited the prophet Daniel in the Old Testament to interpret dreams. In the New Testament the Angel Gabriel announced the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ as a heavenly messenger. The original designer did have that angel in mind, but it was quickly identified with another. Another heavenly messenger, the Angel Moroni, gave directions where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ founding prophet Joseph Smith could recover golden plates to translate by the power of God. From this translation came The Book of Mormon scripture where “Mormons” get their nickname.

The Angel Moroni also represents the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the latter days, along with the gathering of Israel. He is often interpreted as the angel from Revelations 14:1-6 who was seen flying, “in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” The angel is calling out to the House of Israel and as an ensign to the nations to come together. Temples are gathering places where the work of the Lord can bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children. Former LDS President Thomas S. Monson said (GC, April 2011), “temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies.” Boyd K. Packer of the LDS Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said (Ensign, Oct. 2007), “It is a privilege to enter the holy temple. If you are eligible by the standards that are set, by all means you should come to receive your own blessings; and thereafter you should return again and again and again to make those same blessings available to others who have died without the opportunity to receive them in mortality.” Those who enter the temple must do so with spiritual purity and a reverence for the holy sacred.

Angel Moroni statue

Virtual Temple Tour Part I: Meaning and Preparation

Perhaps the most visual symbols of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are temples that sometimes have at the top of spires a gold statue of an angel blowing a trumpet. Less noticed, unless living in a place that has a lot of Latter-day Saints (otherwise called “Mormons”) are the meeting chapels where Sunday worship and other activities take place. Anyone who is an LDS Church member or not can go to a chapel, but the temples are different. Only those who are baptized as faithful members can enter into and partake of the worship inside. Every now and then those who are not LDS members may visit a recently built or refurnished temple and take a non-worship tour. Once temples are dedicated only LDS members in good standing can enter for worship activities.

Unlike a meeting house where congregations gather for weekly Sunday services, LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson explained, "The temple is the house of the Lord. The basis for every temple ordinance and covenant…is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Every activity, every lesson, all we do in the Church, point to the Lord and His holy house." (General Conference, April 2001). It is a place where families of the Earth are united for all of eternity in righteousness. Elder Boyd K. Packer of the LDS Twelve Apostles stated, "Temple. One other word is equal in importance to a Latter-day Saint. Home. Put the words holy temple and home together, and you have described the house of the Lord!" (GC, April 1993). Each temple will have the words “Holiness to the Lord, the House of the Lord” engraved over an entrance door, signifying it belongs to Jesus Christ with the prospect of heavenly visitation.

Worship within the temple is full of symbolism compared to a regular church service that mostly contains prayer, hymns, and sermons. There is only a few symbolic rituals outside the temple that Latter-day Saints practice. Baptism is done by full immersion to represent rebirth, death and resurrection, and cleansing away of sins. Related to baptism is the Sacrament, known to other Christian religions as Communion, that was instituted by Jesus Christ in remembrance of the sacrifice of his blood and flesh on the Cross. The amount of symbolic ritual in the temple is strikingly different from the basic Sunday worship services.

Temple worship is also considered highly sacred and to be discussed with careful reverence, if mentioned at all to the point of secrecy. The sentiment is similar to what the early Christian theologian Origen wrote in his Against Celsus (Ante-Nicene Fathers, 4:399), “to speak of the Christian doctrine as a secret system, is altogether absurd, but there should be certain doctrines, not made known to the multitude . . . not deemed fit to be communicated to profane and insufficiently prepared ears.” The writer of the early Christian document Clementine Rocognitions ( in ANF 8:83) wrote, “For the most sublime truths are best honored by means of silence.” Jesus Christ himself often spoke in parables, with his disciples asking why he taught in that way. His response according to Mark chapter 4:11 was, “unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.” For these same reasons Latter-day Saints are advised, such as former LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinkley cautioned (GC, April 1990), “Sacred matters deserve sacred consideration. We are under obligation, binding and serious, to not use temple language or speak of temple matters outside.” Because of the sacred nature of the temple, this virtual tour will follow the example of what is available in official LDS Church statements and publications.