Consider 17,096
exterior stones, 47 miles or nearly 250,000 linear feet of
wood, 4,668 cubic yards of concrete, 407 tons of structural
steel, 80 miles of electrical wiring and 184 individual
doors.
These numbers
describe some of the construction details involved in
building the Oquirrh
Mountain Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints. The supply list would not differ much
in quantity from any other construction project of more than
61,000 square feet, but temple construction projects operate
on one noticeably differing principle: prayer
At the beginning
of each workday, construction project managers, engineers
and specially called temple missionaries gather in a review
of the day's assignments and conclude that inventory session
with a prayer.
David and Bobbie
Arnson, missionaries assigned to the recently
completed Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple construction in Salt
Lake County, Utah, suggest that \"the teamwork achieved in
carefully creating a temple begins in a morning devotional
with the project managers and prayer.\"
Numerous
construction workers agree that the prayer makes a
difference in the success of the work. Often errors are
noted in a timely manner or calculations change to address
immediate concerns. Sometimes extraordinary challenges are
efficiently resolved.
Getting all the
pieces of a temple
together in a timely fashion challenges nearly every
construction project.
Nearing the
completion of the Sacramento California Temple, Okland
Construction project manager, Russell Mumford, reported that
the unseasonable weather posed a huge problem. \"It rained
almost every day for two months, the two months we needed to
install the landscaping and finish up the project. Instead
of being able to plant, we had a full lake surrounding the
temple. The landscape contractor was also frustrated with
the situation and pressured by the deadlines. We received
permission to invite local members of the church to
participate in the landscaping installation. In 10 days of 4
four-hour shifts and with about 200 volunteers a shift, the
orange-vested contractors carefully supervised the crowds of
volunteers and the landscaping was completed on time,\"
Mumford explained. \"We never could have done it without the
local support.\"
Lee Fugal,
engineer for the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple, had an
opposite experience with the landscaping on that temple.
\"All fall long we had unseasonably warm and clear weather,\"
Fugal explained. \"We laid the last piece of sod on December
12 and it snowed the next day and didn't stop for a week.
It's unheard of here in Utah to lay sod in December, but we
did.\"
Mark Lawrence,
the drapery contractor for the newly completed Utah temple,
described his attempts to find the right item in a timely
manner. \"I tried for several months to find the perfect
fringe trim for the draperies, but was unable to locate an
appropriate trim,\" Lawrence reported. \"After I had exhausted
all my resources, I turned to the head designer at the church. I searched some examples in his library and finally
found a beautiful match. I called the manufacturer, only to
discover that he was already producing that very trim in a
quantity of 50 yards. I needed 40 and because it was already
in process, I was able to meet my deadlines on the project.\"
Doug Welling,
president of Jacobsen Construction, said: \"Building a temple
utilizes the highest quality in every material, and every
fashioning of that material has to be the absolute best.
Assembling a temple is a unique building experience. We all
have a desire to produce the very best workmanship for the
house of the Lord, implementing innovative design and
materials of the highest quality in an economical way that
will allow the project to continue.\" See the story in its original presentation at lds.org/newsroom.