We visited the Los Angeles California Temple on Day Three of our California Temple Trip. It was closed on the day we visited. Later that day we went to the Fresno Temple. After Fresno we journeyed to Oakland to stay overnight, ready to visit the Oakland Temple the next day.

Click on the images to enlarge.

The Los Angeles California Temple is the tenth operating and the second-largest temple operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When it was dedicated in 1956, it was the largest temple of the church, later surpassed by the Salt Lake Temple with its additions and annexations. The grounds includes a visitors’ center open to the public, the Los Angeles Regional Family History Center, also open to the public, and the headquarters for the Los Angeles mission.

The Los Angeles Temple was announced when the church purchased 24.23 acres from the Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company on March 23, 1937, by president Heber J. Grant. Construction was to begin soon thereafter, but financial difficulties relating to the Great Depression and World War II delayed the groundbreaking until 1951. The temple plans were revised at this time to include a priesthood assembly room, an unusual feature in temples built after the Salt Lake Temple. It was also expanded to accommodate an unprecedented 300 patrons per session.

This was the first temple with an angel Moroni statue since the Salt Lake Temple. When the statue was installed, it faced southeast as the temple does. It was later turned to face due east at the request of then Church President David O. McKay.

This was the last temple designed to use live actors instead of a film to present the endowment. The motion-picture presentation soon replaced the live actor presentation, and the progressive presentation (in which patrons moved from one room to another) was replaced with stationary ordinance rooms (i.e., patrons remained in a single room for the entire ceremony). In 2003, the temple reverted to a progressive-style presentation of the endowment (but still using a movie) and completely renovated the Terrestrial Room.

The Los Angeles California Temple was closed for renovations in late November of 2005, with reopening originally scheduled for May 2006, but eventually delayed until July 11, 2006. The renovation also included a seismic overhaul and a complete redesign and reconstruction of the baptistry, which had long been plagued by mold due to poor ventilation.

The well manicured grounds, open to the public, are filled with a various plants, including Canary Island Pine trees, several varieties of palm trees, Bird of Paradise trees, olive trees, and rare Chinese Ginkgo trees. At the left and right of the temple are two fountains, and at the front is a large reflection pool. Several family-themed statues further beautify the grounds. In December temple grounds are all aglow with thousands of multi-colored lights in celebration of Christmas.

While not as regionally prominent as the temples in Oakland, San Diego, and Washington, the Los Angeles California Temple is still one of the most distinctive features of Los Angeles’ Westside. Thousands of commuters pass it every day on busy Santa Monica Boulevard. The proliferation of high-rise buildings along the Wilshire Boulevard corridor and in nearby Century City has reduced its prominence in the Westside skyline. However, its dramatic night lighting and sheer size still make an imposing sight, particularly for travelers exiting the Santa Monica Freeway northbound on Overland.

Numerous Church facilities are on its grounds including a meetinghouse, a baseball field, the headquarters of the Church’s California Los Angeles Mission, and apartments (used by missionaries, temple workers, temple patrons, and visiting church officials). The remaining land, along Manning Avenue, was subdivided for residential lots, the sale of which considerably offset the expense of constructing the temple. Because it was the church’s first temple (save the roughly contemporaneous Bern Switzerland Temple) built outside of an LDS-dominated settlement, the Los Angeles Temple was the first LDS temple explicitly designed for automobile accessibility: its parking facilities were larger than those of any temple built previously, and there is no direct pedestrian connection between the front doors and Santa Monica Boulevard.

The temple’s architecture is generally Modernist, an aesthetic that extends to the choice of exterior cladding: 146,000 square feet of Mo-Sai pre-cast concrete facing, a mixture of crushed quartz and white Portland cement quarried in Utah and Nevada. The very light brown pigmentation of the Mo-Sai blend has the advantage of concealing the thin layer of soot that accumulates on most buildings in Los Angeles.

The temple is 369 feet long, 269 feet wide and has an overall height of 257 feet. Atop the temple stands a 15 foot tall statue of the angel Moroni.

The rooms include a baptistry, celestial room, four ordinance rooms, ten sealing rooms, and an assembly room that stretches the entire length of the temple. The Los Angeles temple features murals on the walls of its progressive-style ordinance rooms including the celestial room. The only other temple with celestial room murals is the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple.

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.

We visited the Newport Beach California Temple on Day Two of our California Temple Trip. We first went to the Las Vegas Temple, then to the Redlands Temple, then the San Diego Temple, and lastly to Newport Beach in the evening.

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The Newport Beach California Temple is the 122nd temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The temple was announced on April 21, 2001 and dedicated by Gordon B. Hinckley on August 28, 2005. It is the sixth operating temple in California.

Like its sister temple in Redlands, the temple in Newport Beach uses interior and exterior architectural themes consistent with what was used in the Spanish missions of the early Western US and Mexico.

In response to opposition from residents of the surrounding community, the LDS Church made several modifications to the original design. The exterior was changed from white marble or granite to a more pink granite, considered more appropriate for Orange County. The steeple was lowered from 124 feet to 90 feet, and the exterior lighting is turned off each night at 11 o’clock.

The temple is topped by a cupola holding the traditional statue of the angel Moroni. Here is a little history of the statue of Moroni. In the first version of Moroni, the left arm is hanging at his side, slightly outstretched with his fist clenched. A few renditions later, the figure was slightly modified to incorporate the gold plates. In his version of Moroni for the Hill Cumorah Monument, Torlief Knaphus placed gold plates in Moroni’s left arm. For his version for the Los Angeles Temple, sculptor Millard Malin followed Knaphus’ design and kept the plates in Moroni’s left arm; so did Avard Fairbanks, who sculpted the version for the Washington D.C. Temple. (Replicas of Fairbanks’s plate-holding Moroni stand atop the Seattle Washington, Jordan River Utah, and Mexico City Mexico Temples.) When Karl Quilter designed his version of the figure, he eliminated the plates and then spent a great deal of time making sure the left arm hung in the proper position—not too rigid, not too limp, but showing slight forward movement. (New Era)

As with many contemporary LDS temples, the Newport Beach California Temple is built on the grounds of an existing stake center and shares parking with it.

The temple has a total of 17,800 square feet, two ordinance rooms, and three sealing rooms and is located near the campus of the University of California, Irvine.

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.

We visited the San Diego California Temple on Day Two of our California Temple Trip. We first went to the Las Vegas Temple, then to the Redlands Temple. After leaving San Diego we went to the Newport Beach Temple to finish our day.

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The San Diego California Temple is the 47th constructed and 45th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One of the towers is above the celestial room and the interior of the tower can be seen all the way to the top, giving the celestial room a very tall and magnificent vaulted ceiling. The celestial room also has a balcony where one can sit.

Located near the La Jolla community of San Diego, it was built with two main spires, but unique to this temple are four smaller spires at the base of each main spire. The East spire is topped with the familiar Angel Moroni statue which adorns most LDS temples.

The exterior finish is marble chips in stucco giving the building a white glow. Just off Interstate 5, the temple is a major landmark when traveling the highway to or from San Diego. The temple is brightly illuminated making it even more noticeable at night.

All Moroni figures are gilded, or covered with gold. The process involves rubbing thin sheets of gold onto the figure’s surface. Today that process usually only takes a couple of days, but once the figure is gilded, it must be handled with gloved hands to avoid marring the delicate surface. (New Era)

The San Diego Temple was announced on April 7, 1984, and dedicated on April 30, 1993 by Gordon B. Hinckley.

The temple was built on a 7.2-acre plot, has 4 ordinance rooms and 8 sealing rooms, and has a total floor area of 72,000 square feet.

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.

Thursday was Day Four of our California Temple Trip with Jake and I attending the first session of the day at 7 am at the Oakland Temple. Afterwards we did sealings where as proxies I was the father and Jake was the son. Then it was on to the Sacramento and Reno temples. We stayed over in Reno to rest for our drive home on Friday. The photographs of the Sacramento and Reno temples I will post at a later date.

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The Oakland temple was in Paul’s mission.

The exterior of the temple is reinforced concrete faced with sierra white granite from Raymond, California. On the north and south faces of the temple are two decorative friezes, and is the last temple to have such.

The front (north side) illustrates Christ preaching His gospel to the people. Within the front garden courtyard there is a statue of children in front of a bronze plaque bearing a scripture from 3 Nephi 17, from the Book of Mormon, telling how Christ blessed the children during his visit to the people of ancient America.

The temple sits on a prominent site in the Oakland hills and has become a local landmark. Through the front courtyard are stairways which lead to the temple terrace situated above the ground floor of the temple. We were there early so the gates to the courtyard were locked.

From the temple grounds and terrace are spectacular views of the Bay Area, including downtown Oakland, the Bay Bridge, Yerba Buena Island, downtown San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge. The Grounds are accented by flowers, palm trees, and a formal-style man-made river running from one fountain to the other.

The temple was built on an 18.3-acre plot, has 4 ordinance rooms, 7 sealing rooms, and has a total floor area of 95,000 square feet.

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.

Wednesday was Day Three of our California Temple Trip with Jake and I starting the day with a trip to the Los Angeles Temple. The temple was closed but we were able to walk around the grounds and take some photographs which I will show you later in another post. Afterwards it was a drive northward to the Fresno Temple where we waited for five hours to take in a session. We knew what the schedule was but couldn’t work in the times any better. Once leaving the Fresno temple we got a motel near the Oakland Temple ready for the next day.

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The Fresno California Temple is the 78th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

California has long had a history with the Church starting with members who sailed to San Francisco aboard the Brooklyn and members of the U.S. Army unit known as the Mormon Battalion who were discharged in San Diego, many of whom stayed and helped build up the San Diego area.

The groundbreaking ceremony was in March 1999. Before the temple was dedicated it was opened to the public. During that time 53,000 people toured the temple. On April 9, 2000 President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Fresno California Temple.

The Fresno California Temple has the same design as the other smaller temples that are being built worldwide. The exterior is white sierra granite and features a single-spire topped by a statue of the angel Moroni. It has a total floor area of 10,700 square feet, two ordinance rooms, and two sealing rooms.

Since gold leaf is a perfect conductor of electricity, and because the figures are often placed high above the ground atop a temple’s tallest spire, they are frequently hit by lightning. Today’s figures have a copper rod running through them vertically, which extends several inches above the figure’s head at the top, and attaches to a grounding cable at the bottom. This serves both as a lightning rod and as the mechanism for mounting the figure on the building’s tower. (New Era)

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.

Tuesday was Day Two of our California Temple Trip with Jake and I starting the day with a 5:30 am session at the Las Vegas Temple. Afterwards we left immediately for the Redlands California Temple but missed the start of the session by 7 minutes. However, we were able to help with some initiatory work.

We left right after we took our photographs to take in a session at the San Diego Temple. This time with Jake driving we made the session. After some quick photographs we left for the Newport Beach Temple. Again we were on time (just).

Today I am posting only the Redlands temple pictures, the other temples we visited today will have their photographs posted later. Click on the images to enlarge.

The Redlands California Temple is the 116th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The site for the Redlands California Temple was dedicated in December 2001 and construction began soon after. Members helped in the construction by donating rocks for its building, some of these rocks were from the area where the original Mormon colonists of 1851 camped.

Young children also donated their pennies to buy the palm trees that are now planted around the temple. The temple sits on 4.6 acres and is 17,300 square feet. It houses two ordinance rooms and three sealing rooms.

From August 9th through September 6th 2003 an open house was held for the Redlands Temple. About 11,000 people volunteered to help with the open house and more than 140,000 people were able to tour the temple and learn more about the purpose of temples.

The temple was built on a lot that originally was home to an orange grove; during the open house visitors were served orange juice made from the trees that once stood there.

Church President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Redlands California Temple on September 14, 2003. Thousands of members attended the four dedication services. The Redlands Temple was the fifth temple built in California. It serves approximately 70,000 members in the area.

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.

Monday was Day One of our California Temple Trip with Jake and I leaving Kaysville in the afternoon and reaching Las Vegas in time to take photographs of the temple before the sun went down. Tomorrow morning we will take in a session when the temple opens. Click on the images to enlarge.

The Las Vegas Nevada Temple is the 43rd operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Located in the Sunrise Manor CDP near Las Vegas, Nevada, the temple sits on 10.3 acres at the base of Frenchman Mountain. A groundbreaking ceremony and site dedication for the temple were held in November 1985. President Gordon B. Hinckley, then a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, presided and gave the dedication prayer. Construction began soon after the ceremony.

The temple was open to the public for tours between November 16 and December 9, 1989. Almost 300,000 toured the temple and its grounds during these three weeks. The temple has six spires, the highest of which is 119 feet. At the top of this tower stands a ten-foot statue of the angel Moroni.

The exterior is a white finish of pre-cast stone walls with a copper roof. The temple has 192 rooms, which includes four ordinance rooms, a Celestial room, six sealing rooms, a baptismal font, and other facilities to meet the needs of the purposes of the temple.

Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the Las Vegas Nevada Temple December 16-18, 1989. Eleven sessions were held and more than 30,000 Latter-day Saints attended the dedicatory services.

Photos by Rickety. Text from Wikipedia.