Gilbert AZ Temple Tour

A Tour of the new Gilbert AZ Temple

Story of a Celestial Chandelier

     I have a young friend, Taylor, age 15 who lives in the difficult environment of a CPS group home in Mesa, AZ. Although I first met her when she was baptized at age 8, her tragic life has left her with little knowledge about Christ and His redeeming sacrifice for her. Each month when I go up to Mesa to see her, she will ask if we can go to the Mesa Temple Visitor’s Center where we watch videos or look at special exhibits. Or she’d request a visit to the Regional FamilySearch Library across from the Mesa Temple, where she helps me pull and copy pages from books for my own research. Of course, she also gets onto one of the computers and communicates with relatives in England via FaceBook and Messenger.

     It was a natural idea for me to ask Taylor if she’d like go along with me to visit the Open House of the nearby Gilbert Temple. On the 21^st of January at 4:30pm we toured this beautiful temple. We had a photo taken in front of the temple to begin because no photos are allowed inside due to the sacred nature of it being the House of the Lord.

Taylor and Bev in front of Gilbert Temple

Taylor loves taking photographs and afterwards while the sun was setting, causing glorious lighting, she took some great photos.

     As we were leaving, there was a tent set up where people could fill out request forms to have someone come to their home to learn more about the church. Taylor was drawn into the tent because of beautiful flowers, plant arrangements and wonderful paintings on 

display.

Crystal Chandelier Story

One of the men hosting there was a local Priesthood leader. He took a special interest in Taylor. It turns out that he and his wife and 18 year old daughter named Taylor…Can you believe that?... were asked to help put the strings of Swarovski crystal beads onto the chandelier in the celestial room of the temple.

He tells this story:

They had to wear white gloves to handle the strings. A Swarovski company had a representative on site. They had to hook the long strands of crystals around the rim and down to a center finial at the bottom. In so doing the crystals form a lovely graceful shape.

They had placed about a third of the strands before his daughter noticed that they weren’t hanging evenly. She studied out the problem and noticed some of the bows, located where they attached to the rim, were tarnished, and some were longer than the others. She told her dad that she thought she could fix the problem and asked him to pick out a perfect stand. They laid this one on the table as their guide, then he removed all of the stands and compared each one to that guide. Having selected matching stands and using only these, they rehung all of them. The result was a chandelier that was perfectly shaped.

Official Photo of the Chandelier in the Celestial Room Gilbert Arizona Temple (used by permission)

     These crystals were from Swarovski, he told us, well-known for their high quality, but what most people don’t know is that they also produce a line of crystals even better than what is commonly available. These are the ones used in the Gilbert temple lighting fixtures. Both Taylor and I had gasped at their beauty when we saw them on the tour. There truly was a remarkable difference from the normal crystal you might see elsewhere. These crystals reflected light like scintillating rainbows. I tried hard to figure out how it was done… where the light source was coming from. It was awe inspiring. Words cannot describe how exquisite they are.

Then the man asked Taylor, “What did that one perfect strand represent?”

She answered, “Jesus!”

“What do you think the other stands represent?”

“I guess they represent all of us,” she answered.

     He told her how lovely she was and how talented. She was made of the highest quality materials, in the image of her Father in heaven. In this earth life we acquire a little tarnish and find we have little differences or imperfections (like found in the bows). It is our job in this life, to work on fixing those, so we can become like Jesus, our Savior.

My Taylor IS lovely. Heavenly Father loves her very much.

     He loves each of us, perfectly. He sent his son Jesus Christ to this earth and He died for us, so that those imperfections can be eliminated, if we repent and believe on His name, receive baptism and follow his commandments. This allow us to return to our Father in Heaven unblemished at the end of our earth life.