It is glorious. It is eternal. It is heavenly.

It's humbling to be here in this temple.

Many inside and out of the Church wondered why we would ever spend that much money on anything other than humanitarian aid. As a curator, we have these buildings. We have the artifacts, we have the documents. At the end of the day, they can help testify of the gospel and of what God has done for His children. That’s the value. My response will focus primarily on one day in the history of the temple: April 3, 1836. On that day, Easter Sunday,

Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery bowed, probably as they knelt, and engaged in solemn, silent prayer.

As they arose from praying, they experienced a series of visions. They reported,

“The veil was taken from our minds and the eyes of our understanding were opened.” And they saw Jesus Christ.

He was standing on the breastwork of the pulpit, presumably just above them on the top row of pulpits.

There are very few places on the earth where we can point to and say,

the Savior was here. We are delighted that we can continue to share this special place, the Kirtland Temple, with the world.

After this vision of the Savior closed, the heavens were again opened and Moses appeared before them, committing unto them the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth.

Next came Elias, committing the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham. And finally Elijah appeared, announcing that the time had come to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers.

Joseph Smith called it our “Pentecostal period.” But that’s intellectual. The thing that I have found is that Kirtland is a place where you feel it's here. I’ve not found to that extent anywhere else. These are holy places, I believe wherever deity appears and you feel that this is holy ground. There is little we do in this Church of lasting significance that is not done under the authority of the keys restored on April 3, 1836, in the Kirtland Temple.

That is why The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent over $192 million to acquire the Kirtland Temple and other significant properties, documents, and artifacts.