CEDAR CITY — Some 1,600 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and community members gathered Saturday for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Cedar City Utah Temple.
Attendees enjoyed blue skies, sunshine and a light, cool breeze on a hill overlooking the west side of town as Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy grabbed a shovel and broke ground for what will be the 17th Mormon temple in Utah.
In welcoming attendees, Elder Kent F. Richards of the Seventy and executive director of the temple department for the LDS Church, commented on the “lovely weather” after torrential rain, stiff winds and thunderstorms rolled through the area the day prior.
“Those of you who prayed that we might have good weather, your prayers are answered,” he said.
Elder Clayton presided over and offered the dedicatory prayer at the service, which was broadcast via live webcast to thousands more gathered in LDS meetinghouses throughout the proposed temple district. When completed, the 42,657-square-foot edifice will serve members from 17 stakes from Boulder, Utah, and Escalante, Utah, on the east; to towns within Lincoln County, Nevada, on the west; and from Ely, Nevada, and Milford, Utah, on the north; to New Harmony, Utah, on the south.
Elder Clayton said he can’t imagine a more beautiful location for a temple. Edged with pinion and juniper trees, the 7.3-acre site sits high atop a hill that will enable the temple to be seen from miles away.
“The temple stands as an invitation to all of us,” Elder Dane Leavitt, an Area Seventy, told the Deseret News. “I hope that the visual reminder will cause all of us to lift our lives.”
In his remarks, Elder Clayton recognized the strong pioneer heritage of the area that was originally settled by Latter-day Saints sent by Brigham Young 164 years ago.
“As we break ground today symbolically and then turn to heavy equipment to finish the job, may we remember their broken picks and the shovels they wore out as they broke the hard soil and slowly turned Cedar City and the other communities in this temple district into gardens and fruited fields and homes and churches and schools," he said.
Elder Clayton advised church members to be grateful, prepared and worthy to enter the temple while it is being built in the next few years.
“It’s a time for us to take counsel from God rather than give him counsel about all the things we think he ought to be doing,” he said. “We should make sure that our priorities are aligned with his.”
Elder Clayton told the Deseret News the new temple will not only be a blessing for members of the LDS Church but also for the community.
“Temples have the effect of lifting entire communities,” he said. “It will make good things even better.”
Other participants in the program included Elder Clayton’s wife, Kathy Clayton, Elder Richards’ wife, Marsha Richards and Elder Leavitt's wife, Ruth Leavitt.
Civic, tribal and other religious leaders were also invited to participate in turning the soil including the stakes presidents and their wives who serve within the temple district.
After digging in with their shovels, Elder Clayton and Elder Richards swapped their handheld tools for heavy machinery as they operated an excavator in literally breaking the ground where the temple will stand.