DAY 3: After being immersed in Temple Square the previous day, there were so many questions on our minds, especially since we’re not allowed in their Temple and wondered what might go on in that massive, stone building! Sandra Tanner, the great-great granddaughter of Brigham Young, an ex-Mormon, and founder of Utah Lighthouse Ministries, was able to shed more light on the subject. We met with her as a group for two hours and she explained all of the rituals to us and showed us the temple clothes. She has a multitude of resources and articles on the ministry webpage if you want to know more. The LDS church has actually tried to sue her two times they hate her ministry so much! Below is the small, cut-away version of the Temple from the South Visitor Center.
Here was the partial baptismal that was on display in the museum.
And this is the place where the eternal marriage “Sealing” happens, also on display in the Museum.
We returned to Temple Square after lunch and visited the Family Search Center which is a library of resources for genealogies (remember because they have to baptize the dead). While I decided to do a bit of family research since my mom’s side has some disappearing relatives, one of our youth got into a conversation with a woman who was studying to be a professor at BYU and he had an intense conversation with her about the Bible versus the Mormon prophecies. He later went back and continued the conversation, which was an amazing opportunity, especially because she wasn’t a missionary, so he didn’t have to worry about having Temple Guards asking him to leave. We had to leave to watch the Joseph Smith movie, but he promised to return and continue the conversation. The Joseph Smith movie was well-done. The emotional propaganda was incredible. One of our youth also reminded us that many of the scenes in the movie mirrored the propaganda of dictators. You know, the ones where they’re seen with children and doing good things like binding up traveller’s feet. You can watch it here. So much in the movie is left out like his strange family history including dark magic, the fact that he was a Master Mason, his multitude of wives, racism, and many other historical facts, like the weight of the “golden” plates that he ran with (they would have weighed 200+ lbs!) and the non-existant archeological evidence for the “historical” accounts in the Book of Mormon.
Later that evening, we travelled to the set of “Heart of the Matter” a TV show hosted by Sean McCraney, an ex-Mormon and now born-again believer. The LDS church also hates him. He’s quite the character. You can visit their website and see all their previous episodes (we were in Episode 324). He lets people call in at the end of the show, which is quite the experience.
Hearing testimony of God drawing men and women out of Mormonism and into the Light was incredibly uplifting after feeling so much darkness all around. Many people who come out of the LDS church hate God and become Atheists because of what they’d gone through. People the Russ (UPFC), Sandra (ULM), Sean (HOTM), Pastor Larry (a man we met later in the week), and many others work with people who are coming out of this very intense cult in a way the communicates truth and a compassionate way so as not to turn them away from Christ and the true gospel. Utah, especially Salt Lake City, has a very low percentage of Biblical Christians. Pray for these men and women who minister among the lost of Utah. The LDS church claims to be 14 million strong, but in reality, they are losing their youth and God is at work drawing people out of this darkness for His glory!