Tradition was followed by the unexpected during a cornerstone-sealing ceremony at Sunday's dedication of the LDS Church's Vernal Temple.

President Gordon B. Hinckley stood with other church officers, all wearing white suits, and placed a trowel of mortar up to the cornerstone of the 26th temple he would dedicate."I've had a lot of experience, but I don't get any better at this," he said as he pushed the mortar into place using tools that had been used to build the original Uintah Tabernacle more than a century ago.

"The idea is to put it in the crack and not on the floor," he instructed as he invited general authorities; his wife, Marjorie; and the temple president to help mortar in the cornerstone.

"The last time I did this was on my house," said Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve. "And I wasn't wearing a white suit. I hope I don't leave the remnants on me for the rest of the dedicatory services." Following tradition, several children, two sons and a daughter of a mason who worked on the temple, were then invited to help President Hinckley with the mortar.

Then President Hinckley asked if any others would like to take a turn. A moment passed silently, then a rush of small children came through the ropes separating the watching crowd from President Hinckley and his party.

If church security officers had thoughts of restraining the children, they were likely displaced by the recollection of a biblical account where Christ chastised those who tried to restrain a similar rush of small children who wanted to see him.

All of the youngsters were allowed to try their hand with the trowel as President Hinckley went inside the temple to officiate at the first of three dedicatory services scheduled during the day. One boy who didn't want to wait in line simply scooped up some of the wet mortar and marched away with his souvenir.

Other souvenirs of the temple's construction were sealed behind the cornerstone in a time capsule.

President Hinckley offered the dedicatory prayer in the service inside the temple that included singing and remarks by church leaders. Overflow congregations in four Vernal chapels watched the service on closed-circuit television.

Dedication services were then repeated in two additional sessions Sunday with four more services scheduled on Monday and four final dedication services scheduled for Tuesday.

Now dedicated, the Vernal Temple becomes the church's 51st operating temple and its 10th in Utah. The building is unique among the church's temples in that it is the first to be built using an existing structure, converted from the historic Uintah Stake Tabernacle, which was dedicated in 1907.

President Hinckley has presided over more dedicatory services at the church's temples, by a considerable margin, than any other church leader. Four of those have followed his being named as president of the church in 1995.

Tabernacles, in LDS Church context, describe large, open meeting halls used primarily for regional church meetings and Sunday worship. The church's best-known tabernacle is the domed structure on Temple Square, which is the home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Temples are closed on Sundays and are used for marriages and other church ordinances Tuesdays through Saturdays. Only church members who profess strict worthiness standards are allowed to enter the church's temples.

Temples are, however, open to all visitors during open houses that traditionally precede dedication services. The church hosted nearly 120,000 visitors to the Vernal Temple during a two-week open house that ended Oct. 25. Craftsmen and other workers then spent one week cleaning and doing touch-up work to prepare the building for dedication, said temple historian Kathleen Irving.

After the final dedication service Wednesday, workers will have much less time to rearrange furniture before the temple opens its doors to patrons at 6 a.m. Thursday, Irving said.

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Temples are typically much larger and costlier than chapels used for Sunday worship. Church practice, especially during the latter half of this century, has been to build temples where they are accessible to larger church populations.

President Hinckley announced to a churchwide audience on Oct. 4 that the church would start building smaller temples to meet the needs of church populations in more remote areas or where the population is not expected to grow dramatically. He said the first three "small" temples will be built in northern Mexico, Alaska and the southern Utah town of Monticello.

The Vernal Temple is situated in a smaller community and, at 33,000 square feet, is much smaller than the two most recent Utah temples completed in Bountiful in 1994 and in American Fork in 1996, both measuring 104,000 square feet.

But the Vernal Temple is likely to remain unique amid the new program of small-temple building. No other of the church's tabernacles are scheduled to be remodeled as temples, and structural restoration drove the Vernal Temple's reconstruction cost to $7 million, more than church officials expected and likely much higher than the cost of constructing a new building.

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