Celebrating Temples!

By Darcie Jensen

When the Salt Lake Temple was completed in 1893, Latter-day Saints rejoiced. It had taken them 40 years to build the temple. Because children had donated money to help build the temple, President Wilford Woodruff decided to hold five special dedicatory sessions for children to attend.

Today temples dot the earth, and children still help celebrate the completion of temples. See how children have participated then and now.

More than 12,000 children came to the Salt Lake Temple for the dedication. These children from the Sugar House Ward rode a train.

This ticket allowed children up to the age of 16 to attend special dedicatory services for the Salt Lake Temple. Apostles and members of the First Presidency spoke to the children inside the temple.

Sometimes temples are rededicated after they are remodeled. Primary children sang and carried lights in the performance that celebrated the rededication of the Anchorage Alaska Temple.

Each week as the Gilbert Arizona Temple is being built, Primary children from the Gilbert Arizona Highland Stake have set a goal to serve someone in their wards.

When the San Diego California Temple was being built, Primary children from Mexico made a colorful rug for the temple. General Authorities stood on the rug during the cornerstone service at the dedication.

Primary children in Manitoba, Canada, drove three hours to the Regina Saskatchewan Temple to touch the walls and commit to go inside one day.

Primary children at the Kyiv Ukraine Temple open house welcomed visitors by singing “I Love to See the Temple.”

More than 800 Primary children from West Africa sang “I Am a Child of God” at the cultural celebration before the Accra Ghana Temple was dedicated.

Each temple has a cornerstone that shows the year it was dedicated. At the dedication, General Authorities seal the cornerstone with mortar. Isaac B., age 9, helped put mortar on the cornerstone of the Kansas City Missouri Temple.

Primary children sang for President Gordon B. Hinckley when he arrived to dedicate the Aba Nigeria Temple.

Photographs (from left): courtesy of Gilbert Arizona Highland Stake; courtesy of Church History Library; courtesy of Richard N. Holzapfel; by Lynn Howlett; by Mabel and Delbert Palmer; courtesy of Russell K. Anderson; by David M. W. Pickup; by Lori Garcia; by Gerry Avant; and by Julie Dockstader Heaps; illustration by Brad Teare