On Tuesday morning, April 2nd, we left St. Louis and traveled across the state to Independence Missouri. Our first stop was at the LDS visitors center located at the temple site. We got a wonderful tour of the visitors center that included a couple of movies and visual presentations about the conditions that the Saints were under at the time that they were in Independence. The temple site is very unusual in that besides the LDS visitor's center we share the lot with two other denominations: the RLDS church (now the Community of Christ Church) which has two huge buildings on the site including their world headquarters and a temple, and another mormon breakoff - The Church of Christ-temple lot which has a small church closest to the purported actual site of the temple.
After we visited the visitor's center we went to the Church of Christ building first. We entered the church and discovered that they were in the middle of some meeting. We sat in the foyer waiting for a tour. Eventually, a kindly old man came out and spoke to us. He said the meeting was part of their general conference and that they had just nominated a new apostle. He told us about the church's most famous artifacts which were on display in the foyer. These were two stones that had been discovered that they believed were the proposed cornerstones of the temple. As we talked with him, we could hear that they were ratifying the vote and we were concerned that he would want to be included. However, he didn't seem all that interested in returning to the conference because he had known the person since he was a little boy. He said the church had about 3-5 thousand members in the world with most of the members outside the U.S. in the Phillippines. He himself had been to the Phillippines five times for missionary work, although he couldn't speak tagalog.
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The Church of Christ-Temple Lot
is the small white building on the back |
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The two stones that were found and that are now on display in the church's foyer.
SECT they believe means South East Corner of Temple |
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Where the stone was found
(the building in the back is the Community of Christ headquarters building) |
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| This was where they think another corner of the temple will be. |
We then headed over to the Community of Christ headquarters but couldn't find an open entrance. However, we did find a sign that said the tours begin at the temple. So we walked over there and went inside. We found a rather stern lady who gave us each a hand held self guiding tour device and a map and said we should could just follow the tour. The tour through the "Path of Peace" seemed more in line with a protestant religions and hardly mentioned Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon. The tour eventually wound through the building to the inner sanctuary that was very impressive. It was a large 1500 seat chapel with a huge pipe organ and a spiral ceiling that went up very high with a Nautilus design (crab shell). We then went into the museum where we found a very nice gentleman with a huge neck brace. He showed us around the museum which included the actual door of the Liberty Jail and several portraits of Joseph and Emma, and of course their children who went on to become the founders of their church. We talked about the differences between our churches and he was very complimentary of our missionary program and of Dieter F. Uchtdorf who had come by for a visit and would be "welcomed any time". He said that the decision to elect women to the priesthood and to be elders in the church didn't go over very well, and that he himself had voted against it (along with half the members). He did conclude by saying that his wife, who is now an elder, and was the stern lady that we had met could really give a great sermon using Chicken Soup for the Soul.
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The Community of Christ Temple
this is across the street from the LDS Visitors Center (on the North)
and the Church of Christ Temple Lot (on the East)
and kitty corner to their headquarters building |
We left the temple site and went to our hotel which was a dump across the street from both the Kansas City Royals ballpark and the Kansas City Chiefs stadium dropped off our suitcases then headed out to see the LDS Temple and Liberty Jail. The Temple was beautiful (it was dedicated just a year ago). Liberty Jail was a little tougher to find because it's kind of in a residential neighborhood. The jail itself has been reconstructed and is inside a small rotunda. We had a great sister missionary who the girls thought reminded them of a slightly older Abby-Kate. I thought Liberty Jail was a real highlight.
