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Through the
Camera Lens: Gordon B. Hinckley in Nauvoo, June 27, 2002 (Part Three)
Text
by Maurine Jensen Proctor
Photography by Scot Facer Proctor
Note: Click
on photos below for enlargements.
They were tithed
three times while building the temple: once on their assets, once
on their income, and once on their time, so that people gave one
day out of ten "The effort to which they went is almost unbelievable,"
said President Hinckley. "and that they insisted on finishing
it before they left."
President Hinckley's
grandfather was a robust young man of 18 or 19 when the Saints lived
in Nauvoo. "I'm satisfied he worked on the temple. Everybody
did." When he left Nauvoo, he had married Ann Eliza Evans,
but she would not see the Salt Lake Valley. Both his wife and his
brother-in-law died the same day somewhere in western Nebraska.
He buried them in an unknown place and carried a three-month-old
daughter to the great Salt Lake Valley.
Years later,
in 1939, President Hinckley's father, Bryant Hinckley was mission
president in the area at the 100th anniversary of the coming of
the Saints to Nauvoo. "He had a great interest in seeing the
temple restored here," said President Hinckley, "but the
dream was never realized."
"I first
came here in 1935," said President Hinckley "when Nauvoo
was a sleepy, little weed patch of a village." Then, it would
have been difficult for the prophet to imagine this day of dedication
more than 60 years later. Not only is Nauvoo a place transformed
and renewed, but more lies ahead.
"People
are looking forward to seeing what you have up your sleeve next,"
said one reporter. Could this dedicated Nauvoo Temple, in fact,
be the crowning moment for President Hinckley?
He answers with the native optimism and vigor Church members have
come to expect.
First, of course,
he quips. "A lot of people may be looking forward to my demise,"
but then he adds his true feeling. "The Church is going to
continue to grow. I think we've barely scratched the surface. Great
opportunities are ahead of us. It looks extremely promising. I have
no doubt of that The Lord, overseeing this work, will see to its
growth.
"This is
the greatest season in the Church," he said, "and it will
only get better."
"I absolutely
marvel when I see the stature of the Church today. The breadth of
it, encompassing the world. We now have members in 160 nations.
We have become a great international family of 11 million strong.
It is significant when you think of our people who lived here, a
small group who were largely in poverty as a result of what they'd
done here. They left here, went to the valley of the West. When
you fly over these great farms of Illinois, Iowa and see this tremendous
soil, deep and rich and fruitful, how dreary the valley of the Great
Salt Lake must have looked when they arrived there in July, burned
and dry and a desert country. But they didn't complain they went
to work and made the desert blossom as the rose. And it has.
"I hope
people will leave here with the impression that here is a people
who believe in the immortality of the human soul. Everything that
will occur in this temple henceforth will be concerned with the
things of eternity. Everything that takes place here-the baptismal
work, the ordinance work will all point in the direction of the
conviction of our people that God has spoken, that the heavens have
been parted, that the Father and the Son appeared to the prophet
Joseph and declared a system under which we believe in the eternity
of the human soul, that life goes on that this is not the end. We
believe that our lives will continue and that if the blessings of
eternity are available to us, they must also be available to others
who wish to accept them."
Click
here to return to the beginning of Gordon B. Hinckley in Nauvoo.
(All
photographs Copyright 2002 Scot Facer Proctor)
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