Temple Open House

San Diego Open House

I recently attended the last day of the San Diego open house. I had previously just been in the baptistry. My main impression was that the explanations of what it was and what we do there were horrible, and if I didn’t already know, I would not have been at all enlightened by what the guides said. Otherwise it was interesting first because of the architecture and what use they made of the odd spaces of the corners created by its overlapping squares design after the first floor (I had only been in the baptistry before).

What they did with the many tall corners was a large sealing room without the eternity mirrors and grand staircases, which is surprisingly apt thing to have in a temple.

I’m going to take a few minutes and write simple explanations. I assume the route we took through the temple was more or less fixed by the constraints to show as much as possible, and to not have the line of people cross each other or otherwise get stopped, so I will follow the same basic outline.

The baptistry - the temple has two basic purposes for us. First, it symbolically shows us the path we must follow to ascend to God and enter into his presence. This path begins with baptism, where we commit to follow Jesus Christ who blazed that path for us during his ministry on earth, beginning with his baptism (point to the painting of Jesus getting baptized) The second purpose is we do the ordinances for the dead, who did not have the chance to do them in life. Here in the baptistry, we are baptized on behalf of a specific ancestor so they can make this commitment to follow Jesus, if they accept it.

Dressing Room - We then went up some stairs to the dressing room. The people ahead of us thought this was weird. I would have this explanation here: here in the temple we change from our clothes in plain, simple white clothing. White symbolizes the purity and holiness of God, which we seek here. The plain simple clothing also erases the differences clothing creates in the world: differences between the rich and poor, and different groups, emphasizing that we’re all one before Christ, and seek to become one in him.

Initiatory and Endowment rooms - Here we make a series of commitments to live our lives as God would like us to - in holiness and purity, and doing the works that he would have us do, including building up his kingdom on earth. And we ask for and are promised a specific series of blessings from God. Together these commitments and blessings are steps up to him. At the end of this ascent we pass through this veil, symbolizing our passage through the gates of heaven, by showing ourselves worthy to Christ, who will be our Judge if heaven is the best place for us, since being there means living the same kind of life God lives.

Celestial room - This symbolizes heaven. Here we reflect on eternity and living with God.

Sealing rooms - We believe that in addition to coming to live with \Him, God wants us to live in loving family relationships in the next world. Here we are sealed to our families with the promise that those relationships will extend after death, if we do those relationships right. The foundational relationship that is sealed here is marriage between husband and wife. And here is a good place to repeat that we do this on behalf of our ancestors, one specific ancestor at a time, which reminds us of the things we learned when we went through for ourselves and also our hope that we can be sealed to our ancestors, who are family, ultimately binding the whole human family in a web of loving familial relationships.