Reflections on Ward Boundary changes: Back when boundaries lasted 40 years

                      A Deseret News map of Salt Lake's original ward boundaries.


MY own ward boundaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have changed significantly over the decades.
In some 35 years of living at the same address, I've survived four major Ward boundary changes and have attended four different church buildings.
(And, that doesn't count my five years serving in the bishopric of a Student ward 12 miles away either ...).
However, early ward borders in Salt Lake City remained about the same for almost 40 years.
In February of 1849, Salt Lake City was divided into an original 19 wards. By 1885, there were just two extra wards and little change in the boundaries of most of the wards.
This was in spite of Salt Lake's population growing from 5,000 in 1849 to some 20, 768 by 1880.
According to the LDS Church News section of Sept. 22, 1985, the old 18th Ward contained where Church headquarters were and also to serve the families of just 3 men -- Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Newel K. Whitney.
And, back then, each ward was and economic unit, as well as an ecclesiastical area. For example, the original Salt Lake Second Ward banded together to dig a canal from Emigration Canyon to water their farms.

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

Church Office Building was originally planned to be 38 stories tall

                      This landmark in Salt Lake City could have been 10 stories taller.

THE  28-story Church Office Building for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints soars above North Temple Street, where it has been the nerve center for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for more than four decades.
However, the 420-foot tall building was originally planned to be much taller.
Although the Joseph Smith Memorial Building directly honors the first president of the church, the Church Office Building was originally envisioned to do so too — with a planned 38 floors, to commemorate the 38 years of Joseph Smith's life.
The 38 floors didn't materialize — for a variety of reasons — or the building would have soared more than 500 feet high.
So what happened to the additional 10 stories?
J. Howard Dunn, who was in charge of project development for the Church's building committee, said in a 1962 Church News article that the plans were changed and eight stories were scrapped to better meet mechanical requirements of the engineering department. Heating and air conditioning for the skyscraper would best be handled in 14-story units, beginning above the first two floors. At that time, the high-rise was to be 30 stories. Later, two more stories were also eventually deleted from that plan.
The building height was reduced for two other reasons as well: First, construction began on the Granite Records Vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon in 1960 and reduced the downtown office building space needed; second, departing missionaries were to be housed elsewhere, again reducing required space.
The original building plans had called for housing space for up to 430 outgoing missionaries in the first few floors of the Church Office Building. As it turned out, missionaries were housed across the street to the north in an old school until the Missionary Training Center opened in Provo in 1978. (Missionaries were fed in the Church Office Building cafeteria in the early 1970s.)
The Church Office Building cost $31.4 million (the equivalent of about $200 million today). The new building led to the substantial widening of North Temple and State streets, too.

              Another Church Office Building view, with the Brigham Young statue nearby.

"The building is designed for immediate and future needs of the church," Mark B. Garff, chairman of the church building committee, told the Deseret News in 1969.
George Cannon Young designed the building, which was under design as early as 1961. The old Deseret Gymnasium, 37 E. South Temple, had to be relocated across the street to where the Conference Center is now. Some Church Business College buildings and other structures also had to be moved to make room.
Work on the three-story, underground, 1,400-space parking structure — Utah's largest building excavation at the time — began first in 1962 and was finished by about 1967. The extracted dirt, 250,000 cubic yards, provided fill material for original I-15 construction in Salt Lake County.
When completed, the Church Office Building also allowed the church to temporarily house all General Authorities there while doing a substantial remodel of the Church Administration Building, 47 E. South Temple.

(Portions of this story taken from an article in the Deseret News on April 1, 2010, written by Lynn Arave and Scott Taylor.)



NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

Elder Uchtdorf's Family has had long presence in Northern Utah

           The graves for Elder Uchtdorf's parents are in the Kaysville Cemetery.

KAYSVILLE AND THE UCHTDORF FAMILY -- Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf has been a General Authority in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1994. He’s now an Apostle. Elder Uchtdorf’s parent’s graves are actually located in the Kaysville, Utah City Cemetery.

If a source at Kaysville City is correct, the Uchtdorf family has had a long presence in Utah. His Mother may have lived with a married daughter and son-in-law in Kaysville for many years. So, she was buried there and her husband’s casket must have also been later transported from Germany and reburied next to her. (Elder Uchtdorf currently lives in Bountiful.)
The gravestone looks almost brand new, so it must have replaced an earlier monument.

                                         Backside of the gravestone.

-If you are ever in the Kaysville Cemetery and want to find the grave – enter the main gate; turn right (east); turn left on the second-to-the-last road going north. The grave is clearly visible on the right-hand (east) side of the road just over halfway to the north end of the cemetery.

                                         The monument faces west.

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

Attire in the Spirit World?

                                           Will we all be dressed in white in the spirit world?

REGARDING attire in the Spirit World, there is a lot we don't know about this temporary realm.

However, some accounts from people who have temporarily died and then returned to life have presented some rather startling ideas, true or not ...
One is that the more righteous a Spirit World resident is, the whiter his or her attire is. So, some have more gray colored clothing there and anyone in the "Spirit Prison" is dressed in dark color...
Could this be true?
Perhaps, though it does seem a bit too obvious there to all residents there of, if true.
This certainly isn't necessarily doctrine, but it does kind of make sense that there is some sort of partial judgment -- visible or not --  like this in the Spirit World. 

Also, I'm not certain if different races exist in the spirit world. I think "race" is a mortal condition and as such does not extend beyond that.

  In addition, when we die, our spirit is naked, yes without clothes! Just as we entered the mortal world naked, our spirit is initially naked -- and it appears that someone is dispatched to meet a spirit just before he or she enters the spirit world and gives them a robe to wear.

(Source: Wilford Woodruff, History of His Life and Labors, as recorded in his daily journals. Prepared for publication by Matthias F. Cowley, September, 1909. Reprinted by (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 7^th Printing, 1978), 541.)

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

The Latin Mystery on page 203 in the Hymn Book

THERE is a popular hymn sung during December in many Sacrament meetings in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that the majority of Church members DO NOT fully understand.

It is: “Angels We Have Heard on High” (Hymn book page No. 203).

This French carol contains an untranslated Latin phrase that the vast majority of Church members who sing it, do not understand what they are singing – unless they know Latin, or they go out of their way to look up the meaning.

(I’m personally not much of a singer, but I do like to know what the meaning of what I’m singing is, or listening to is….)

“Gloria in excelsis Deo” is the key Latin phrase in the hymn that members sing six total times in three verses.

Surprisingly, the current Hymn book contains no footnote or side reference to what this 4-word French phrase means either.

I just consider it odd – especially for adults – to sing something if the full meaning is not clear, as in “Angels We Have Heard on High.”

Now this hymn isn't strictly a Mormon tune, it is also sung in many other Christian churches too, having been around since 1862.

-For the record, “Gloria in excelsis Deo" means “Glory to God in the Highest.”

Obviously music and other artistic endeavors sometimes take certain liberties to seem more paramount, smoother and/or striking and this foreign verse in this song is likely one of these …

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

The first sermon ever delivered in Utah territory wasn't by Brigham Young

WHAT was the first sermon ever delivered in Utah territory?

According to the Salt Lake Telegram newspaper of July 24, 1921, it was delivered by Apostle Orson Pratt, on July 24, 1847, soon after the first group of pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.

                                             Elder Orson Pratt

Elder Pratt based his talk on two verses from the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, Chapter 52, verses 7-8:

7. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publishethpeace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

8. Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion."

(Note that LDS Church President Brigham Young was too ill that day to give a discourse and only made a few comments after Elder Pratt's sermon.)

Elder Pratt's discourse was an inspiration to the pioneers, since they had all safely made the trek to the Salt Lake Valley.
-And, on July 24, 1921, some Church members met in Parley's Canyon (named after Elder Pratt's older brother, Parley), and held a campfire reunion to honor Orson Pratt and other pioneers. Many of this group were descendants of Pratt himself.

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.

Fanciful tales from Layton, Utah wards in the early days ...

                                      A 1931 poster in Layton.

THE VERY FIRST WARD IN LAYTON:
“The members of second ward of Kaysville last Sunday decided to change the name to Layton Ward to so as to conform with the precinct and post office And hereafter it will be known by that name.” (-Davis County Clipper, Aug. 31, 1892.)

SPEAKING IN TONGUES IN AN 1896 LAYTON WARD:
-Layton lines: -- "The stake presidency was with us Sunday and spoke in meeting and 'Aunt Browett' spoke in tongues; Henry Morrison interpreted the same." (Davis County Clipper, June 5, 1896.)

SIX OF SEVEN PROSPECTIVE ELDERS FAIL The 'ENTRANCE EXAM IN 1896':
"'Many are called but few are chosen is the way a familiar saying goes and something after this sort has been the fate of some of our Layton boys. Almost two months ago seven were called to be added to the Elder's Quorum but only one succeeded in passing the entrance exam after being given two trials. The boys were the pick of the town and alright but could not promise that they would in the future never use any strong drink or tobacco or say any swear words. The real cause, it is said, of their fear that they could not keep these requirements, was a number of missionaries are to drafted from the quorum in the future." (Davis County Clipper, May 24, 1896.)

WATER TROUGH BAPTISMS IN LAYTON'S EARLY YEARS:
 Water was needed for more than drinking, bathing and irrigation during Layton’s early days. Some baptisms in West Layton were performed during the summers of the late 19th Century in a stock watering trough at the south end of Angel Street, on the A.K. Green Farm.

The trough would be washed and then refilled with clean water, which was allowed to warm in the sun all day. After the baptisms, confirmations took place in a nearby “buggy shed.” (From the “West Layton/Layton 2nd Wards 1985-1995” history book.)

WHEN SUNDAY SCHOOL STARTED LATE BECAUSE OF NO DEACONS TO BUILD A FIRE:
A report on the West Layton Ward Sunday School indicated that the Sunday, Nov. 3, 1901 meeting began 25 minutes late. The delay was cause because there were no deacons present to build a fire in the church building. (From the Davis County Clipper.)

WHEN A BISHOP PAID YOUNG MENS' TITHING:
The Bishop of the Layton Utah Second Ward, Wayne H. Flint, thought it so important for all Aaronic Priesthood holders to be a full-tithe payer in the Church, that he paid their tithing for them, if they were unable to do so.
From about 1959-1966 this took place.

However, the young men were charged with responsibility of paying the Bishop back. And, according to the book, "West Layton/Layton 2nd Wards, 1895-1995," "All loans were repaid."

                          A historical marker in West Layton,

NOTE: This article and all of the NighUntoKolob blog are NOT an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They are the author's conclusions and opinions only.