Temple Construction Addendum

After I published yesterday's post I thought that I should have included a story I heard from the missionary in charge of the construction of the Provo City Center Temple.  He and his wife have been overseeing the project and they speak at various wards and whatnot in the area.  They gave a fireside for our ward recently and shared some really interesting and inspiring thoughts and experiences from this project.

This Elder told us about the experience they had removing the pointed tower roofs from the corners of the original, burned-out building.  He told us that they did a thorough investigation of the roofs, trying to determine how they were attached, but couldn't figure it out.  So they put a worker inside the first tower, instructed a crane operator to carefully begin pulling on the top of the roof, and waited to see what happened.  The roof simply lifted off.  There was nothing holding securing it to the building except gravity.

He said that when they replaced the tower roofs, they secured them extremely well.  He said they didn't have the faith of the pioneers.

He also went into great detail about all of the many layers of dirt and cement and rocks that went into the building site in an attempt to keep the foundation as strong as possible.  He asked what we are doing to protect and strengthen our foundations?

This article has helpful information about the transformation of the Provo Tabernacle to the Provo City Center Temple.  I like this link too, which shows you what the shell of the building looked like when it was up on stilts.