Made in China - How the Cookie Crumbles

My first question may have been my most insightful. As the sun sank closer to the tops of the Oquirrh Mountains to our west, the large granite building appeared to exhibit a red hue in the direct sunlight. Where did they quarry the stone for the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple? I wondered. The first person we asked didn't know, but someone else informed us that it had come from China. With so much granite available right there in the Rocky Mountains, I was surprised that it had come from so far away. I tucked the information in the back of my mind and proceeded to enjoy an exquisite open house tour through Salt Lake Valley's newest LDS temple.

It is a rare event for the general public to have an opportunity to enter an LDS temple. Before long, the building will be dedicated to the Lord for secret-society like rituals that instruct the most faithful members of the church about how to become the Adams and Eves of future worlds.

The construction and craftsmanship of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple is astonishing. Every detail of this fine edifice is manufactured and fitted perfectly. The LDS Church spared no expense to create this beautiful palace constructed with the finest materials gathered from the four corners of the Earth.

By the time we had completed our tour, the sun had set behind the Oquirrhs and the Salt Lake Valley glistened with millions of sparkling lights as hoards of tour-goers walked from the magnificent temple to a large tent where free refreshments were being served. In LDS lingo, refreshments means artificially flavored and colored juice and cookies, foods I never eat. I remembered a popular Mormon belief that the human body is a temple, and thought it ironic how the Oquirrh Mountain Temple had been constructed of ONLY the finest materials, yet so many of the Mormons there were perfectly willing, (almost as if it was expected of them), to construct their personal temples with inferior materials such as punch and cookies, not to mention all of the soda-pop, junk food and pharmaceutical/prescription drugs most (American) Mormons consume at an alarming rate.

A mile or so to the north-east, the Jordan River Temple could easily be seen, and across the valley in Draper, I could see another temple glowing in the darkness. In addition to these three, the historic Salt Lake Temple is located only a few miles to the north, making a total of four LDS temples in the Salt Lake Valley. With so many temples in the valley, I wondered why there was a necessity to build the new one right there, so close to the Jordan River Temple. I tucked the thought to the back of my mind next to the reddish granite from China, and headed back to Tooele using Highway 111 on the western edge of the valley to avoid the construction we had encountered on the way there.

As I lay in bed later that night, it occurred to me that Mormons believe that Jesus can't return until the gospel has been preached to every nation kindred tongue and people, and so far, the Chinese government doesn't allow Mormon missionaries to proselytize there. The church, I surmised, in order to hasten the second coming, used Chinese granite to showcase their newest monument to the Lord as a goodwill gesture with hopes of wooing the policy-makers in Beijing. The new temple is an impressive building and I'm sure the Chinese must be proud of their granite.

Personally, I never intentionally purchase anything from China as a statement against that government's human-rights abuses and mass pollutions of the environment. I hope they do change their policies for a better world.