The Mormon Temple or Bust

On Wednesday we were able to go to the Mormon temple in Calgary. A bit of back ground as to why we would go; As a girl my parents took my brother and I to the Cardston Ab Mormon temple. I will admit that I don't remember exactly what I saw, but I do remember it to be amazing and a great experience. So we thought it would be a great experience to take our family and see this new temple with our friends. We learnt a lot!!

What a organized bunch of people. We went on an evening that they were having power outages. And they powered through. It was a cold night and they felt it was important to get everyone inside so that people would not get cold. So we all migrated to the Mormon church that is on the same lot as the temple. The lady that seated us was telling us that the past Saturday they had 8000 people come through their doors for a tour. That is amazing! We moved from the church sanctuary to a small room to watch a 12 minuet clip. Our group was 13 people we knew a few of them, but most were strangers (friendly strangers). But one of the ladies is a neighbor of my good friend Hope (Hi Hope!!), so we pretty much had our own personal tour guide.

We watched the movie that gave us a bit of background of who Mormons are, and why they build temples. And a brief explanation of why they build temple's which do differ from their churches. Temples are for "sealings" and "proxy".

(before I go on to the next part I want everyone to know I am not an expert and I am only explaining the things I learnt on the tour and quickly googled)

What is a sealing; It is a marriage union. A sealing means that you are married for now and for all eternity. (Choose wisely ;)) Mormons believe that they will be together in this lifetime and in heaven. If it is done in a church Mormon or not these weddings are only till death do you part.

What is Proxy; A baptism you can do on behalf of your dead ancestors. Mormons believe that if your relatives were not Mormon/baptised Mormons you can be baptized on their behalf and when they are in the after life they have a choice to except the baptism. This is important because they believe that there is no other way to heaven unless you are baptized.

These two big ticket items do not fit in with my beliefs, being a Christian I think heaven will be so wonderful and so awesome there will be no words for how magnificent it will be. In other words - mind blowing. So knowing who is there and who isn't would have to be a second thought.

And the proxy part I really didn't understand. Although it would be nice to do the work for other people to get the results that I want. I am not sure how it works if these past on people were not nice people what if they were horrible people? Do they still get that choice because I was baptized on their behalf? They get to go to heaven even though they were bad people?? As a Christian we belive the only way to Heavan is through Jesus. Baptisim or not you need to live your life for God.

I don't want to say to much about how much I do or don't agree because everyone has the right to their own religion and their own opinions, and the right to be loved and respected despite our differences. We can all love despite our differences!

Now onto the tour: The stain glass was amazing. First impressions mean a lot and the impression I got was WOW! They had paintings and plush carpet. I am so not exaggerating when I say you could have slept on the carpet and it would have been more comfy then an air mattress! They had a sign in desk where you would pick up your temple recommends or book the temple for you occasion. The next room was the baptism room were it had a pool of water being held up by 12 ox. This represented the 12 tribes of Israel. The chairs looked like you could melt into them and read all day long. All the little and big details were taken care of!

Even the little kitchen was nice. I would love to have all these rooms in my house! We seen a chapel, two training rooms, change rooms. This is where they would go to change once they entered the temple to be with God in clean and white clothes. The brides room. That was my favorite room! I wish I had pictures so you could see what I am talking about. But there was not photography allowed. We were allowed to go into the serenity room. This is a room of silence... we took our kids in, and they said nothing. I was so proud of them, we really wanted to be respectful!

On the top of the temple was the angel Moroni. This one you can google(or click on the links on bottom of post to learn who this is), I am afraid that I would say something that would be not nice to say! The temple glowed and it was a sight to see!

There are now three temples in Alberta. 129+ temples worldwide. I think that all religions could take note of how they have so many people ready to work and serve. It is just part of what they do.

Thanks Hope for organizing this fun night for your small group and all of us extra people! And thanks for the yummy turkey dinner too!

Here are some links for a few pictures and a bit of learning:
http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/09/26/mormon-temple-opens-in-calgary
http://www.mormontopics.org/eng/temple?CID=30002
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/calgary/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Moroni

I would love to hear what experinces others had going though the temple.