Temples in Our Lives
Dedication of the Durban South Africa Temple
“What temples have done for our people in South Africa—as well as the Church and the gospel—is to have lifted their horizons and their goals.”
Diversity dominated the scene of engaging smiles, hearty handshakes, warm embraces and shared selfies as the throngs of Latter-day Saints gathered outside the Durban South Africa Temple before, during and after its three dedicatory sessions on Sunday, Feb. 16.
Vibrant hues featured on the dresses, blouses and ties accented the dark suits and white shirts. Skin colors spanned the spectrum from whites to browns to blacks. Language ranged from English and some Portuguese to the clicks and stops of Xhosa, Zulu and other tribal languages.
All of this represents the diverse Durban temple district in South Africa, Lesotho, and Mozambique. All represent a blended, growing Latter-day Saint family in South Africa and in neighboring nations. All are representative of God’s sons and daughters.
“The Church has a great way of minimizing those differences and creating a gospel culture separate to these traditions and separate to these ethnicities,” said Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who presided and spoke at the three dedication sessions and offered the dedicatory prayer.
“What you saw outside was how the doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ unite us, and I felt very at one as a people today. Regardless of how they look, regardless of how they dressed, we were one people today—the people of the Church of Jesus Christ.”
Dedicating South Africa’s second temple
With the dedication—including the public-facing cornerstone ceremony at the start of the first session—the Durban temple becomes the Church’s 168th operating temple worldwide and the fifth on the African continent.
For the 10 days prior to the dedication, Elder Rasband and his wife, Sister Melanie Rasband had been speaking with the members, missionaries, youth, and friends of the Church in the temple district—including two pairs of kings and queens, of Lesotho and the Zulu nation.
“And even though I’ve been with two kings, today I had the strong impression that we were here to worship and honor the King of kings,” said Elder Rasband, calling that impression “truly the benediction to our trip.”
Sister Rasband said a highlight for her was having children and grandchildren join them in the temple and being reminded that “families are forever.”
“The music has just lifted us to greater heights of spirituality as we sat and felt the Spirit grow and grow in every song,” she added. “And to be able to shout ‘Hosanna’ to the Lord and to our Father in Heaven in gratitude was just a perfect combination of our feelings.”
Elder Carl B. Cook of the Presidency of the Seventy, who with Sister Lynette Cook joined the Rasbands on their travels throughout South Africa and Lesotho, emphasized the virtues and values of the area’s Latter-day Saints.
“We appreciate the light in the eyes of the African people. We love how they live and work in families and communities. We are lifted by their genuine smiles and happiness, by their faith in God and their gratitude for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We are inspired by their goodness. We learn so much from them.”
To see Latter-day Saints of all races today share embraces, let alone share common spaces as they did Sunday on the temple grounds, is a far cry from the latter half of the 20th century in South Africa, when racial segregation, known as apartheid, raged with distrust, anger and even violence between the country’s whites and blacks as well as between black tribal nations.
Percy “Chappy” Winstanley, who presided over the first Durban stake created in 1981 and came up from Johannesburg to attend the Durban dedication, recalled Church members putting their lives on the line regularly—sometimes in helping with routine meetings and activities.
“We had a high councilor down in the Eastern Cape who would have to run the gauntlet of rioters throwing rocks at his car to go open the meetinghouse in the morning,” he said. “Then he would have to go back [to lock the building], and here came the rocks again.”
Worries of a possible civil war overshadowed life locally 35 years ago, when the Johannesburg South Africa Temple was dedicated in 1985.
“I believe with all my heart that the Lord put a temple in Johannesburg to help apartheid come down,” said Colin Bricknell, a former bishop and stake president in Durban who last year concluded a three-year service with his wife, Jennifer Bricknell, as president and matron of the Johannesburg South Africa Temple. Their son Brad Bricknell chaired the Durban temple’s open house and dedication committee.
Growth of the Saints
The Johannesburg temple is seen by Latter-day Saints as a precursor to South Africa’s changes in the decade after the temple’s dedication—including a revised constitution, the abolishment of apartheid and a racial reconciliation and peace. They liken it to the Freiberg Germany Temple, which operated behind the Iron Curtain several years prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
“The temple has meant a lot not just to the members, but also to South Africa as whole,” Colin Bicknell said, noting that shared dressing rooms for patrons when the Johannesburg temple opened was contrary to apartheid’s norms of segregation.
And now, South Africa has an additional temple—a second witness of the gospel and of the Church’s growth and stability in the nation, as well as an increased opportunity to bless the lives of Latter-day Saints.
For decades, temple attendance for not only Durban Saints but also all South African members seemed like a long-distance challenge. Initially, going to the temple was a 9,000-kilometer flight (5,600 miles) to the nearest temple—in England. Later, South Africa was assigned to the district of an announced temple in Sao Paulo, Brazil—also in the southern half of the globe but still nearly 7,500 kilometers (4,350 miles) and a whole hemisphere away.
In the 1970s, the Bricknells had saved enough money to take their family to the temple to be sealed. But when Church leaders asked for donations from South African members to help fund the building of the Sao Paulo temple, the family sacrificed their travel savings.
“We contributed all we had saved for that family trip,” said Jennifer Bricknell. “And within a year, we had the money to take all five of our children to the Salt Lake Temple.”
Even with Africa’s first temple located in Johannesburg, members in the Durban area needed to travel the seven to eight hours by bus or car, making regular temple worship difficult. Often, young couples held a pre-marriage reception in Durban early in the morning, then rushed to Johannesburg to be sealed in the temple later that day, to meet the Church’s same-day policy at the time.
Young people from Durban and the surrounding areas would serve full-time missions and come home as changed individuals, Colin Bricknell said. But they would return home—often as the only member of their family—and find it hard to get to the Johannesburg temple frequently, if at all, and then start to drift away from activity. The Durban temple now offers an additional holy place for worship, strength and stability.
Durban’s dedication weekend served as a homecoming for Elder and Sister Cook, who had resided in South Africa as he served five years in the Africa Southeast Area presidency, including the last three as president. He had presided at the Durban temple’s groundbreaking on April 6, 2016.
“Four years ago, Sister Cook and I climbed the hill where the Durban temple was to be built, along with many others who attended the groundbreaking,” he recalled of the beautiful, clear day.
“There was a feeling of awe as we sat on that empty hillside. We looked out over the valley and out to the ocean and realized that in a few short years, a temple would rise up on that ground. To have the sacred privilege of returning for the dedication of the Durban temple that has been built up to the Lord is very humbling. I am filled with joy.”
Another temple, another reason
Joining the contingent of visiting Church leaders were the three General Authority Seventies who comprise the current Area Presidency—Elder S. Mark Palmer, Elder Joseph W. Sitati, and Elder Joni L. Koch—and their wives. As well as Elder Kevin R. Duncan, a General Authority Seventy and the Temple Department’s executive director.
With a new temple at a closer proximity comes new opportunities—to worship more frequently, perform more temple work for deceased ancestors, and to serve more regularly as an ordinance worker or temple volunteer.
“For the members, it’s something they have to learn and understand—that the temple is a place where you worship and go regularly to, where you have the opportunity to renew your covenants,” said Winstanley. “They have to learn that process as we did in Johannesburg—that going to the temple is not a once-off visit but a constant worship and serving process.”
Said Elder Cook: “I thrill to think of the people who will fill the temple—working, serving and furthering the Lord’s work here on the earth and for those on the other side of the veil. It is a great blessing for the people here, as well as for each of us who rejoices in this temple. Our lives will never be the same.”
Bricknell, Winstanley, and others anticipate the Durban temple to not only provide blessings and opportunities for individuals and families but also to have an influence for good over the people and the land—similar to how the Johannesburg temple and the promises and blessings uttered by President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008) at its dedication are seen as having helped usher in reconciliation and peace in South Africa.
Perhaps a second temple will help sustain Church members as they seek enhanced education and employment opportunities through BYU-Pathway Worldwide or the Church’s self-reliance programs or help ease the nation’s economic hardships or help prepare the people in some other way, Bricknell said.
“It’s another temple and another reason. The Lord is in control of His timing—the ‘divine design’ that Elder Rasband talks about,” he said. “What temples have done for our people in South Africa—as well as the Church and the gospel—is to have lifted their horizons and their goals.”