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    • Inside One of the Holiest Rooms in Mormon Temple
    by Sammy Heslop
    Published - 07/07/12 - 11:55 AM | 10 10 comments | 8 8 recommendations | email to a friend | print
    The Celestial Room in the Kansas City Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is shown in this 2012 photo. (IRI photo)
    The Celestial Room in the Kansas City Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is shown in this 2012 photo. (IRI photo)
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    (New York, NY) - It’s a room few get to see, with high ceilings, comfortable furnishings and an ethereal brightness that’s meant to evoke images of heaven.

    Called the Celestial Room, it’s one of the most sacred rooms of a Mormon temple.

    The purpose of the room is “to remind us that we’re on our way back to God. We’re on our way back to Heaven. That’s our objective,” Elder William R. Walker, a senior leader within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — also known as the Mormon Church — told Barbara Walters in a recent interview.

    And not just any Mormon can enter a Celestial Room, only Mormons in good standing are allowed to enter.

    Friday's special two-hour “20/20,” Barbara Walters met with religious leaders from different faiths around the world to get a range of perspectives on heaven and the afterlife.
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    Comments
    (10)
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    RaymondVG11
    |
    July 09, 2012
    To ExMormon:

    I found your choice of word "enslaved" to be quite interesting. A person who is "enslaved" as I see it, has no freedom. In fact, I find the gospel of Jesus Christ to be very liberating! I am grateful for the blessings of the temple and of my membership in the Church. It has helped my wife and I as we have raised our children to not only develop a deep relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ, but to enjoy the freedoms and blessings of his Gospel. Those blessings include a personal relationship with him, the guidance of the Holy Ghost in our personal lives while facing the difficult challenges this life has to offer, the privilege of serving our fellow beings and bearing one another's burdens.

    I look forward to the day when I will see my Savior and not only thank him for his infinite atoning sacrifice but for all of the times that he has gotten me through my deep and dark days.

    If, as you suggest, this is all a lie, then it is one of the sweetest lies ever told for it has brought my family and me a tremendous happiness and a strong relationship with my Lord and God.

    I wish you the very best in your sincere search for truth and happiness and hope that you will find peace in your life.
    Reply
    Graham McKee
    |
    July 09, 2012
    In August this year my dear son and his fiancee will be married in the Preston, England Temple. the two of them have prepared themselves by faithful and kind service to others to be married for time and for all eternity.

    I love the Holy Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. How anyone can go within those sacred walls and be impervious to the wonderful feeling of love and serenity there is something I simply cannot comprehend.

    The Temple is a source of joy and of strength to me and has been though out my life. I cannot read the statement by Robert without my heart going out to this dear brother who has before him the most marvellous present directly from Heaven which for some reason he has not been able to unwrap.

    May the Lord bless you and help you Robert. Please do not cast out such sublime blessings and joys through your unbelief.
    Reply
    Harry D. Galley
    |
    July 08, 2012
    Poor Robert, I cannot believe that he was an LDS member after reading of his bitterness of the "Church members" and the Church as a whole. I feel sorry for him when and if he does cross thru the veil, especially when he knows what a waits him. Me thinks he wants his 15 minutes of frame for "Barbara" Humble yourself Robert
    Reply
    exmormonforJesus
    |
    July 09, 2012
    Harry, it is you that will be surprised that their is no celestial kingdom that requires secret masonic handshakes to enter. Embrace the teachings of Jesus in the bible and abandon the false teachings of mormonism. You be humble Harry. You have abandoned the living Word in the bible for Joseph Smiths made up books and teachings. Read Moroni 8:18 and ask yourself why the BOM states God is spirit and eternal from everlasting to everlasting yet supposedly after running the line of God being spirit for 13 years then all of a sudden Joseph changes his mind??? What about the first vision? Oh yeah which one of the conflicting accounts was it? He made it all up. Wake up!!
    robert bridgstock
    |
    July 08, 2012
    I have been a Mormon from age 18 to 60 years of age. A fully active, temple recommend carrying member, serving in many callings, including gospel doctrine teacher, stake callings, bishop and branch president. I was told that the little doubts which grew over the years were a reflection of my lack of faith. That my innocent ‘questions’ were an indication of either pride or sin. I tried hard to suppress my uncertainty and to continue in obedience. I never was 'unworthy,’ nor was there any known sin causing me to lose the spirit and question my faith. I did not realise then that this is how the church always deals with people like me... people who ask honest heartfelt questions. In the end, by reading more widely and revaluating church history, I came to see, that whatever the church ‘appears’ to feel like to its members now, it’s early prophet leaders were false and corrupt. Then, after greater, more in-depth research, I have come to see that the leading hierarchy of the church during my life time and still today, have continued to suppress its corrupt history and to hide its embarrassing doctrines.

    So don't be fooled by the slick, pious language of Mormon leaders, nor the lavishly adorned temples. The temple endowment ceremony itself, leading one into the celestial room, is a madness you have to experience to appreciate... it is an absurd pantomime and the most amazing con trick imaginable, which has been watered down over the years and is directly borrowed by Joseph Smith from Masonic ceremonies. It has absolutely nothing to do with ancient temple rites, which were essentially about animal sacrifice. When I first went, I hoped to find God, but instead, I found men playing and abusing God. He wasn’t there. Their fullness was too empty - their house so cold. Such beautiful carpets, such beautiful walls, so tastefully furnished, so lavishly adorned, yet it was empty and stone cold. You can’t ‘create’ or ‘generate’ the presence of God through lavishly expensive temples set in beautiful landscape gardens… I don’t blame them for trying, because there is precious little else in the endowment that is going to do it!

    Reply
    Larry Webb
    |
    July 08, 2012
    Spoken like a true apostate.
    Jarom
    |
    July 08, 2012
    You sound bitter....
    Gracia N. Jones
    |
    July 08, 2012
    As a descendant of Joseph Smith and a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since I was 18, (over 56 years) I wish to comment here that it is sad to me that some people become embittered by their "study of history" and find nothing but fault with the Church (LDS/Mormon). There are others who study that same history and have their faith and commitment strengthened. The fact is, any resemblance to Masonic symbols in the LDS temple ordinances only goes as far as the basic fact that each (LDS and Masonry) draws upon ancient origins—but the resemblance is utterly superficial, as anyone who actually studies both should recognize without too much difficulty. Someone who has the privilege of going to the temple, and receiving the blessings offered there, who comes away feeling it is empty and cold has surely missed the point of why we have temples and what should happen to our hearts when we are in one. The furnishings in the temples are neither lavish nor ostentatious--they are serviceable and nicely chosen for comfort and peaceful enjoyment--they are used and enjoyed by hundreds, even thousands, who respectfully and reverently enter there for the purpose of being away from the world to meditate, pray, and commune with and make covenants with a loving Heavenly Father whose message is 'be virtuous, be generous, be peaceable, be compassionate and caring of others, be forgiving. In the temple we are invited to repent of being prideful, selfish, self-righteous, or of any practice that would demean our own selves or others. I love the temple and the beautiful spirit of peace that pervades its space. I love my family and can think of no more lovely experience than if we would all be in the celestial room together someday. The harmony required for that assembly, if pursued by every individual and family, would greatly improve the nature of our society beyond the walls of the temple, and even beyond the so called closed society of Mormonism. The kind of peace enjoyed in the temple is available to anyone who is willing to practice the principles governing civility and turn away from the hateful mischief of rejecting something merely because they cannot understand it or are imbued with criticism and prejudice. With all my heart I declare that the founding of the LDS Church was through divine revelation and that Joseph Smith was a true prophet called to restore the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth in the latter days. I quote here a prophecy published in 1842 Times & Seasons by Joseph Smith which is fulfilled in our day: “The blessings of the Most High will rest upon our tabernacles, [and temples] and our name will be handed down to future ages; our children will rise up and call us blessed; and generations yet unborn will dwell with peculiar delight upon the scenes that we have passed through, the privations that we have endured; the untiring zeal that we have manifested; the insurmountable difficulties that we have overcome in laying the foundation of a work that brought about the glory and blessings which they will realize; a work that God and angels have contemplated with delight, for generations past; that fired the souls of the ancient patriarchs and prophets—a work that is destined to bring about the destruction of the powers of darkness, the renovation of the earth, the glory of God, and the salvation of the human family.” Joseph Smith, nor any of those who have led and directed the Church from then to the present ever claimed to be perfect or infallible, but they have served with dignity and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ trying to raise a standard of truth that is meant to bless the whole world.

    exmormonforJesus
    |
    July 09, 2012
    Robert, so glad you found the truth about this enslaving religion and its pagan temple. Stay strong in the biblical Lord Jesus Christ and ignore the self-righteous that try to label you. They are the ones that are the true apostates from the true and living biblical Jesus by continuing after reading and learning of church history and they still continue to support such an commercial church.

    Larry. Shame on you, you have committed murder in your heart by your unrighteous judging and labeling Robert as an apostate.

    Jarom. So intelligent of a statement you think. Again, your labeling and judging, its just plain mormon shunning in the works. How pathetic. Come to know the truth and you will have what you thought as friends say the same to you then.

    Gracia. IF you really did read and learn of the truth in church history you wouldn't IF a true believer in Christ still remain a member. I suggest you give explanations of the horrible acts the church has done instead of just dismissing them as oh well they are just humans.

    I left the church after deciding the lies where too many. Not just one or two but hundreds and more. Its a narnia story, thats it and its an income generating machine. What is so untruthful about the temple is you have to pay tithing of 10% to even get a chance to go to the temple. No one ever mentions that part.

    Gracia. Show proof the masons got their rites from ancient temples because you are big time mistaken. Also what about the old testament temples, you had to be a levite and its was no celestial sealings, secret handshakes etc. Just give one proof that what goes on in the lds temples are of ancient temples.

    Sorry guys, you have all been feed a big lie, a narnia fairy tale and it is truly sad that your eyes are closed to the biblical Jesus and His true teachings. You know he warned of if anyone presents a different gospel. Well that different gospel is presented by the mormon church today.

    Ok mormon friends. Call me apostate, call me blind, call me whatever is in your hearts and then continue in blindness if you desire. I don't care because I have the truth from the true word of God, the bible and the truth shall set you free.
    RaymondVG11
    |
    July 09, 2012
    Robert, I cannot speak for anyone's experience but mine. I am grateful for each and every experience I have at the Temple and enjoy the peace and spirit that I feel there.

    I wish you the very best in your sincere search for happiness.
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