Lessons on the Temple
Lesson No. Ninety-Two

 A Temple, not Cotton, is the Legacy of the St George Latter-day Saint Pioneers

The Cotton Mission to St George – When the Latter-day Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, Brigham Young resolved that the Church should be economically independent. Beginning in March 1857 Church members were called to go to Washington County to colonize, with the specific assignment to "grow cotton”. In 1871 Brigham Young terminated the Cotton Mission as sickness, poverty an various other complications had increased over the years. But in that same year, 25 years after the Nauvoo Temple was abandoned, he announce a far greater and more important work; to build the first temple in the West. Certainly, the difficulties of the Cotton Mission prepared these amazingly faithful people for the eternally essential work of temple building and temple worship.

The miracle of the St George Temple was a result of the great faith of Latter-day Saints living in Utah – In 1871 when the St George temple was announced by President Brigham Young there were only 1,100 members of the Church living in St George. This is an amazing when we realize 1,100 members is about the size of two large or three small wards today. The St George Temple was built with great sacrifice by sturdy, faithful saints who had very limited resources. They fought heat, dry wind, alkali in the soil and mosquitoes in the air. The water was bad and the Virgin River kept flooding. Still they persevered and transported lumber from Mount Trumbull, 80 miles away, by ox team. Ground water was discovered so they packed the site with lava rock to insure a proper foundation. Groundbreaking was on November 9, 1871, and the temple was dedicated less than six years later on April 6, 1877. To do this in six years under ideal circumstances, in an urban area, would be amazing, but it was a miracle under the circumstances in which the St George temple was built.

The miracle of the St George Temple was a result of the great faith of noble spirits living in the spirit world – In August 1877, about four months after the dedication, Wilford Woodruff received a vision:

“I will here say… that two weeks before I left St George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they, “You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years, and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God….I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon Brother McAllister to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and fifty other eminent men, making one hundred in all, including John Wesley, Columbus, and others.’

“Twenty years later in general conference, the experience was still fresh in his mind: ‘Every one of those men that signed the Declaration of Independence, with General Washington, called upon me, as a Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Temple at St George, two consecutive nights, and demanded at my hands that I should go forth and attend to the ordinances of the House of God for them….I told these brethren that it was their duty to go into the Temple and labor until they had got endowments for all of them. They did it. Would those spirits have called upon me, as an elder in Israel, to perform this work if they had not been noble spirits before God? They would not.

“James G. Bleak, chief recorder of the St George Temple was a second witness to President Woodruff’s initial visitations: ‘I was also present in the St George Temple and witnessed the appearance of the Spirits of the Signers… the spirits of the Presidents…. And also others, such as Martin Luther and John Wesley….[who came to Wilford Woodruff and demanded that their baptism and endowments be done. Wilford Woodruff was baptized for all of them. While I and Brothers J.D.T. McAllister and David H. Cannon who were witness to the request were endowed for them. These men…laid the foundation of this American Gov., and signed the Declaration of Independence and were the best spirits the God of Heaven could find on the face of the earth to perform this work. Martin Luther and John Wesley helped to release the people from religious bondage that held them during the dark ages. They also prepared the people's

hearts so they would be ready to receive the restored gospel when the Lord sent it again to men on the earth” (Quoted by Andrew Skinner, Temple Worship, p. 165-68).

President Ezra Taft Benson personally examined the records stored in the St George Temple vault verifying this work had been done. With regard to this experience he explained:

“I saw with my own eyes the records of the work that was done for the Founding Fathers of this great nation, beginning with George Washington. I was deeply moved on that occasion to realize that these great men returned to this promise land by permission of the Lord and had their ordinance work done for them. If they had not been faithful men, if they had not been God-fearing men, would they have come to the elders of Israel to seek their temple blessings? I think not. The Lord raised them up, sanctioned their work, and proclaimed them ‘wise men’” (Sheri Dew, Ezra Taft Benson, A Biography, p. 446-47).

The St George Temple was rededicated, after extensive renovations, on December 10, 2023 – In the dedicatory prayer President Jeffrey R. Holland recognized the sacrifice of the early St George pioneers:

“Father, we acknowledge that the hallowed masterpiece in which we gather was originally built by weary but believing pioneer hands. As our beloved Spencer W. Kimball once said here, those valiant souls were “hardly settled from their long, painful and distressing exodus across the plains, [when they] were again uprooted and sent to this desert place to colonize the valleys of the mountains and to build the first temple [in the] West.”

“This morning we remember their disappointments and their tears as they labored in the heat, with alkali soil, malaria and flooding streams to taunt them. We are grateful that they successfully met all of the difficulties presented to them by a rebellious virgin land and an uncontrollable Virgin River. Father, we desire to be more like those Saints of the historic Cotton Mission, who moistened these stones with their tears and lifted these beams with their strength. We know they did that in part for us and also for the legions of kindred dead who yet wait for us, the living, to see that their eternal possibilities are realized.”

Along with the St George Temple rededication we should rededicate our lives to the Lord and His work: President Holland continued his dedicatory prayer: “In that spirit, we rededicate the lives of all in this temple district and in the communities that host them, that we will try to be clean and kind, that we will think celestially, and we will let Thee rule and reign in our lives. We pray that we will fulfill the measure of our creation and live outside the temple the way we act, speak and promise to live inside it.”

Testimony – Having ten direct ancestors among the latter-day saint pioneers who built the St George Temple, I am so grateful that a Temple, not cotton, is their legacy and eternally essential gift to me.