Tour of Laie Temple

If you ever get a chance to go inside a Mormon Temple I highly suggest it. Even though if are not Mormon or not even religious by any standards, it is still an interesting and informative opportunity that you should take advantage of. A bit of a background, one can only go into a temple normally if you are Mormon and have been baptized and officially part of the church. The temple is one of the most important places for a Mormon to come and visit. A visitor or non Mormon can only see a temple when it is open to the public. These times normally follow just being built or a large renovation and construction. From the time that they finish the temple, they open it up to the public before they rededicate. Once it is rededicated, you cannot go into the temple.

Now the tour itself is very structure, they greeted you with smiles and hand shakes and stage you in groups.  At the Laie Temple, we watched about a 12 min film about the history of the "Mormon Temple" and then specifically the Laie Temple itself. Granted it was interesting to know that the Laie Temple was the first Temple in the Pacific (and I believe outside of the Mainland US). This was the second renovation of this temple. After the informational video, we walked up to the entrance of the temple. Now the temple itself is pretty beautiful. Lots of money seems to go into these temples and lots of artwork. Many of the artwork comes from the locals in the area as much as possible. The entrance might also be tailored to the location and the culture that the temple is in. (This is speculation since this is the first temple that I have been in.)

The temple has changing rooms for both the Men and Women to change out of their "worldly" clothes and change into white garments. This is so that everyone is on an even plane and can forget the world behind while they are in the temple. This temple had some renovation to include a Bridal room so that they could get prepared and reflect before they are sealed in the sealing room (married). This temple also has different rooms in which they receive preaching from elders or brothers and sisters. There are I believe 4 sealing rooms in this temple which is where they get married. The highlight of the temple is the Celestial room which is at the "top" of the temple. On the way there, there is a huge water basin that is used for baptisms I believe for both living and then on behalf of the dead. This basin is in model of the basins described adorning the Solomon Temple. Back to the Celestial room, this room is the most important, for the reason that they "feel" closest to God and have ascended from the world for a time. Ascended in the manner of that the elevation is constantly being raised (going up stairs) as you make your way closer to the Celestial room. This room is very bright. White paint, with gold inlay (or gold paint) on the walls, with a huge crystal chandelier. Anyways after the time in the Celestial room, they have to come back down and enter the "world" again. The tour ended with cookies and a comment card area. I put in my information and surprised that no one has contacted me yet. I was expecting to receive a Mormon Bible as well, but didn't.

Now I had two questions that I decided not to ask while I was there. I decided not to ask them since it wasn't time to get into a theological debate. It was pretty difficult to go through the tour with more of an objective look rather than trying to challenge everything they said. Anyways the two questions I have are (1) for the reason why they started building temples: it comes from the fact that in the Old Testament, there was the traveling temple tent in the time of Moses up to the time Solomon built the first temple. There was also the second temple, known as the Herodian temple. Ever since the destruction of that temple by Titus in 70AD there hasn't been a temple until the time when the Mormons were "given a vision" to build a temple. So the question is, if you are going off of the basis of God telling the Israelites to build a temple in order to commune with God, why isn't there just one Mormon Temple in which Mormons have to take a journey (or jihad) like most Muslims to visit the "holy temple". Rather they have over 100 such temples. It didn't make sense to me. The second (2) question was, if the Celestial room is so important and that is where you go to feel "close to God" and to be "more like Him", why are their stair leading back down to the "world" and why would you ever leave?