Rebekah Nielsen of Moscow, Idaho

By Barbara Nielsen

Rebekah Nielsen wants to be an artist. She has loved art since she was barely big enough to hold a pencil or brush. She and her dad often do art projects together. They have made beautiful works of art in rock, oil paint, and mosaic tile.

Ten-year-old Rebekah lives in Moscow, Idaho, with her parents; grandma; two brothers, Jonathan (17) and Christopher (14); and little sister, Hannah (4). She enjoys living in Moscow because it is close to good hiking, biking, camping, and fishing, and also “because it has a nice swimming pool.” She likes school, where her favorite subjects are reading and, of course, art. When her class was studying the Oregon Trail, Rebekah proudly shared stories of her Mormon Trail pioneer ancestors.

Living in Moscow has helped Rebekah with her art. She often uses the world that she sees as the subject of her art. She has won prizes at the county fair with oil paintings of local lakes and rivers and a tile mosaic of the mountains and wheat fields around Moscow.

Rebekah likes to sell some of her crafts at the local farmers’ market. She pays tithing on the money she makes and also donates some to the local food bank. Most of the rest gets saved for college, but she does choose to have fun with a little of it!

A few summers ago, Rebekah and her dad undertook their biggest art project ever. Rebekah’s mom had always wanted a picture of the Salt Lake Temple in their home. That temple is especially important to Rebekah’s family because that is where her parents were married. Rebekah and her dad decided that they could design a tile mosaic of the temple that would be even more special because they made it themselves.

At first, the project seemed impossible. Rebekah wondered how it could be done. What materials could she use? But as they made sketches and started to gather materials, the project became very exciting to her. She and her dad visited many tile stores, going through piles of cast-off tiles and samples to find pieces with just the right colors and textures. They cut pieces off an old red brick to make the flower bed wall in the foreground, and Rebekah searched through small stones she had polished to find pieces for the angel Moroni on the top of the temple.

The original plan was to make the temple itself out of a piece of granite they had. This granite came from the same quarry where the early Saints got the rock for the Salt Lake Temple. But the granite was too coarse. Luckily, one of the ceramic tiles they had found was colored and textured to look like granite. They still used some of the granite from the temple quarry—it is included in the stones in the mosaic’s foreground.

The project was a lot of work and took a lot of time. They worked for two months, breaking tiles with a hammer and fitting the pieces together. When they needed straight cuts or defined shapes, they used a tile saw. Rebekah got very good at cutting tiles to the shapes she needed. Finally, after all of the tile pieces were in place, they applied the grout and finished the sides of the mosaic with some special granite paint.

Now this beautiful mosaic is hanging in the Nielsen home. It is a good reminder of how important the temple is. Rebekah especially likes the way the mountains turned out. Her dad pointed out verses in the Bible that show how even the mountains can help us think of the temple:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

“And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths” (Isa. 2:2–3).

The mountains also help Rebekah remember the pioneers who came to the Salt Lake Valley with Brigham Young and built the Salt Lake Temple.

Rebekah loves thinking about the temple. She knows it’s a wonderful place where people can feel the Holy Spirit. She wants to be good and make good choices so that she can go inside the temple someday. Now the beautiful temple mosaic belongs to the Nielsen family, but Rebekah’s dad has promised her that one day it will be hers to hang in her own home—when she gets married in one of Heavenly Father’s temples.

Enjoying the outdoors

One of Rebekah’s tile mosaics

Rebekah and her father created this beautiful tile mosaic picture of the Salt Lake Temple.

Rebekah proudly shows her artwork.

She hopes to catch a fish soon.

Biking with her family