#11 Manhattan Temple

November 30, 2012

Today Sam & I went to the Manhattan temple and spent most of the day there.  This was a particularly special trip because we were going to be doing the work of my family that lived in Brooklyn.  My GG-Grandfather Wilhelm Guthard Nygren immigrated from Sweden to New York and lived and died in Brooklyn, New York.  All of his children were born there as well.  We took Wilhelm and his children and did all the remaining work that needed to be done in that temple.  Someone had already done my gg-grandmother's work, and I had already done one of their children, my g-grandma.  We did the baptisms of 1 daughter and 2 sons.  We did the initiatories of Wilhelm & 3 sons.  We did the endowments of Wilhlem, 2 daughters & 3 sons.  Then we sealed Wilhelm & Charlotte to their children.

The temple staff was amazing!  We arrived at 11 am, when they opened and began with the baptisms.  Since they aren't as busy of a temple, they were anxious for us to help with some other names, so we did some temple baptisms and confirmations as well.  The workers were

The temple is in busy downtown Manhattan, just a block away from Central Park.  The temple is built inline with the other skyscrapers, but is quite a bit shorter than the other building surrounding it.  The typical spire with Moroni on top was a beautiful site.  After entering the main door, we entered a vestibule with the door to the temple in front and a hallway to the right that lead to the Family History Center.

The front door to the temple is a heavy bronze with  beautiful deep blue stained glass panels on the sides.  When you walk in the large illuminated glass stained glass of Jesus walking with 2 disciples on the Road to Emmaus.  It wasn't quite clear to me that was the specific scene, as I didn't see any marks on his hands or feet, the temple worker said that was the scene.  There is no door separating the small front waiting area to the front desk, like I'm used to seeing in temples.

The baptismal font is located on the first floor, with the entry, just across from the front desk.  The floors and font area are all done in a white with gray marbling.  The font has two beautiful curved stair cases on each side of it that lead up to the font which is in the center.

After doing the baptisms, we went to the 5th floor to do the initiatories.  Sam had 4 intiatories to do, and I only 1, so I did a few temple names as well.  It was fun doing the initiatories, as I had one lady who was from Scotland and had quite an accent and then another lady was from France and only spoke in French.  I couldn't understand a word she said, and even though I'm pretty familiar with the words in the intiatory, I had a hard time knowing what she was saying.  It sure was beautiful to listen to.  I hope we only speak French in heaven!

After our initiatories, we went to do the Endowment, which is also on the 4th floor.  The temple workers sure hustle in this temple back and forth between ordinances.  They don't just stay doing one thing, like I'm used to seeing in Utah.  Since the temple isn't supposed to do family names, we had to get special permission from the temple presidency to have them pass out our names for other people to complete.  We really wanted to get all of the family endowed in the same session.  They seemed to understand and were very willing to help.  So much so, that even ordinance workers helped complete the endowments.

The endowment was done in 2 different rooms.  The telestial and terestrial.  The telestial was a small room with about 40 seats.  Besides the oak wood trim, the room was completely covered in a canvas painting from wall to ceiling.  The walls were not just painted, they did have canvas on them.  When we were to move to the terestrial room, it was stunning.  It was a beautiful white and cream room.  Not much bigger than the first.  It was full of cream carpets, not a ton of trim, but what was there was very ornate and accented with gold leaf.  There was a large stained glass window over the vail that had branches entertwining with each other.  They looked as if they were ribbons, almost.