Link of the Week: A Tour Of The New Mormon Temple : NPR

A Tour Of The New Mormon Temple : NPR

In this short piece, NPR does a good job covering the opening of the Draper Temple to the public this week, including short sound bits from Elders Ballard and Christofferson.

All Things Considered, January 9, 2009 · A new Mormon Temple in a Salt Lake City suburb is a public relations opportunity for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It's a controversial time for Mormons, given criticism over Church involvement in Proposition 8 in California and other recent issues.

The interior pictures to which the commentator refers are actually found here at newsroom.lds.org.

Link of the Week: LDS Church News - Art missionaries help beautify temple interior

LDS Church News - Art missionaries help beautify temple interior

This article relates to professional artists who donate their time and talents to help beautify the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are currently working on the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, but will continue with other temples which are being built around the world.

It's inspiring to contemplate the many ways members of the Church give of their time and talents to further the work and strengthen the Stakes of Zion.

Link of the Week: LDSChurchTemples.com

This is a really cool Church site (you'll recognize the LDS.org look) where you can reference information about the various temples around the world, "featuring news, schedules, photographs, and interesting facts of the temples of the LDS Church."

The funnest page is that for the free downloads, which feature:

• Mapping files in PDF (Adobe Reader), KML (Google Earth), and GPS coordinates (really cool if you have Garmand or other GPS devices in your vehicle). My favorite is the Google Earth feature which allows you to virtually tour the world and see the temples dot the face of the earth.
• Temples Around the World slide show and screen saver. This feature includes all the operating temples and offers the options of playing the screen saver, downloading the screen saver software for your computer's offline use, and downloading the screen saver as a video which is suitable for presentations.
• Individual screen savers featuring the Bountiful and Salt Lake Temples, with 'Inspiring Spires' and 'Temples at Twilight' coming soon.
• Temple wallpaper galleries and slide show. Each individual temple is featured with anywhere from one to 129 photographs (Salt Lake, of course). The Houston Texas Temple has 20.

What a great resource and fun way to display images of the House of the Lord in our homes!