Upcoming temple dedication

Sat September 5,

THOUGHT:  "FAITH IS A REAL POWER, NOT JUST AN EXPRESSION 
                            OF BELIEF"                   Boyd K. Packer

I had my meeting with the Mexico City doctors on the temple grounds.  The Griffins accompanied me as they had not yet been through the temple open house.  There  was a large crowd even at 10 am.  After my meeting we went shopping  with the Hackings for Sunday dinner and had lunch at Carl’s Jr.  We got home just in time for the BYU football game and watched at the Griffins place with my Dish Anywhere.  Nice job BYU.  The BYU game ended kind of late so it was just dinner and a quiet night at home.

This is the front glass of the Temple
which John Quist made!

Temple all ready for the dedication
even with a new flag!

Lots of visitors

Sunday September 6

It was fast Sunday and a stake presidency member was there to sustain the bishop’s councilors.  They only had time to call the Bishop before stake conference so he was sustained without councilors due to the fact that the old bishop had moved.  Next week is the temple rededication.  I bore testimony to the contribution of my mission president, Lester B. Whetten.  Just after he arrived in July of 1973 he had a dream that the Lord wanted a temple in Mexico City but there had to be 12 stakes to make this happen.  He fussed about this for awhile but finally started some priesthood training in the current 4 stakes and had the missionaries spend part of their day tracting businesses looking for men to baptize.  I must have worked because in June of 1976, just before he went home, Elder Howard W. Hunter from my home ward in Salt Lake City went down and created 12 new stakes and reorganized the remaining 4.  He started early Friday morning and didn’t finish until early Sunday morning.  What a weekend.  I was able to get in on both ends of this due to knowing President Whetten during my mission and taking care of his health after the mission and being in the same ward as President Howard W. Hunter.  We had our group dinner, I did my report to Elder Schwitzer and we spent the evening with the other senior missionaries talking about why some people are susceptible to falling away from the church after reading things like “Rough Stone Rolling.”  Your testimony should be based in whether Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet and not whether he used the Urim and Thumim or a Seer Stone to translate the Book of Mormon.  Either way is just as miraculous and totally dependent on the Lord.