M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Through the Camera Lens:
Gordon B. Hinckley in Nauvoo, June 27, 2002 (Part Two)

Text by Maurine Jensen Proctor
Photography by Scot Facer Proctor

The Nauvoo Temple is breathtakingly excellent and built to last. "No expense has been spared," he said. "The Church has become a great worldwide organization since those earlier days and we, through the generosity of people, as well as the tithes of the Church have been able to reconstruct this temple and built it according to the most exacting standards."

Most of the temples of the Church face east by design, with their inscribed "Holiness to the Lord" lit first by morning light. Joseph Smith designed the Nauvoo Temple to face west, standing on a bluff with a magnificent view of the Mississippi River. "The Salt Lake Temple faces east, and with the events of this day," said President Hinckley, "I think of these two great structures facing each other across a major part of the continent and bonded together in a common purpose for the good and blessing of the work of the Lord."

As he unfolds his feelings and answers reporter's questions, he is clearly polished in the role. After all, he has dodged Mike Wallace's bullets and come out as a friend, and so, no matter what the reporters ask, he tells them what he wants them to know about the breadth and depth and power of God's works which we are about.

This may be Joseph's temple, but more important still, the God that Joseph introduced us to is God. His people have returned to rebuild their temple, and this was the day of dedication.

Gordon B. Hinckley with his firm grasp on history, his sense of how to capture the symbolic moment, and the fired-up urgency of his drive has led a people to rebuild their temple. He was particularly suited for the privilege.

President Hinckley doesn't live in Nauvoo, but it lives in him. When Wilford Woodruff left Nauvoo, he said, "I looked upon the Temple and city as they receded from view and asked the Lord to remember the sacrifices of his Saints." President Hinckley remembers.

President Hinckley said that the first time he toured the completed Nauvoo Temple, he walked out of its arched front door, looked down on Nauvoo, across the Mississippi River, and then into Iowa, and in his mind's eye, he could see the wagons of our people in the winter of 1846 crossing the ice of the Mississippi River. "It was an emotional experience for me," he said.

President Hinckley's sense of history is both acquired and gene deep. He reads history and prizes books that bring it alive-like Thomas Ford's History of Illinois. He has had undying interest in Martin's Cove and has pushed its purchase by the Church. But about Nauvoo, "I really marvel," he says.

Since the flat, fertile plains of Illinois didn't offer lumber for building, they had to go to Wisconsin 500 miles away to cut lumber in both summer and winter and then float it down the Mississippi. Once anchored, they took apart their rafts, unloaded the lumber, carried it to the site. They brought the bell from England, quarried the limestone along the Mississippi.

Click here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.