This week has been a busy week of training and
transfer of information as we learn our duties and
responsibilities in the Mission Office.
Instead of discussing those experiences here,
I wanted to pay tribute to the many early Saints
who lived and worked and toiled in Kirtland, Ohio,
since we were fortunate to stop at this historic Church site
as we journeyed toward our final destination.
Above is the beautiful Kirtland Temple, which is being
conserved and shared by the Community of Christ.
We enjoyed a wonderful tour given by talented and
sensitive guide Tom, a middle-aged, pony-tailed LDS man
from American Fork, Utah, who volunteers
as guide (and also is a paid maintenance worker)
on the temple grounds, and has ancestors who built the temple.
One interesting fact: the foundation and walls were build as large
cut stone blocks on the exterior, with wall thickness built out
with rubble stone - that is small varied aggregate collections
of rocks - poured into place in "cages"
formed from wire fencing type containers.
Current caretakers have exposed a portion of
this construction under roof eaves so that
this method can be viewed by touring guests.
Down the hill from the Temple is the Kirtland settlement
where the Newel K. Whitney store and home were located,
and which have been reconstructed in recent years
by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
I have much more respect and admiration for Brother Whitney:
his wife Ann had sought out spiritual things, felt drawn to
the Restored Gospel when she heard Parley Pratt preach.
When the two continued to pray for guidance about
whether to follow this new Church, they were answered
in February 1831 when the prophet Joseph Smith arrived
unexpectedly in Kirtland, indicating he had been "prayed"
to journey there to meet the Whitneys. Newel later became
Bishop for a portion of the Saints, also standing up for
Joseph Smith when many turned against him toward
the end of his life.
As the Temple was planned and construction begun,
a crucial area of activity was the sawmill and
cabinet shop, located in the vicinity of the Whitney store.
This, of course, is a recreation on the creek there,
but we enjoyed seeing these mechanicals (above) where
we could imagine what it was like as the building
materials were shaped and smoothed and finished
for the beautiful House of the Lord that would be
an offering and evidence of the Saints' love of God.
Above is the mill wheel that provided the power to
run (below) the large saw with its sled bed to hold logs
and beams being cut.
Here is a longer view of the saw with sled.
Here (below) is a closeup of the detailed raised "pulpit"
seats designed for the leadership inside the
two large assembly halls on ground and 2nd floors.
The cabinet/furniture that was fashioned by craftsmen
for the original temple (these are recreations on
the site of the sawmill) was exquisite, and was all
built using hand tools as well as . . .
. . . on a lathe which was powered by the mill wheel.
We were fascinated to see and think about
this wood worker's bench with its hand tools
that are significant to us because of the hand
tool wood working that we have been exposed to
through the work of our resident craftsman son Cory.
We love this monument to those who sought and found
the Restored Gospel and wanted their "if so, then what"
demonstration to be the erecting of the beautiful Kirtland Temple.
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