Welcome to the Monastery! As you click around, you’ll notice that not everything is up and running yet, or complete. In spite of that, I’ve gone public because of some pressure to open this up and close the old ones down.

Clicking on the “Temple Information” picture will take to what was the LDS (Mormon) Temple Resources page, the Temple Prep. picture will take you to the former LDS Temple Preparation FAQ, etc. You can also use the links on the left side. Note also the search box, which (surprise!) will search the site content for whatever you wish.

You’ll notice that I have a Spanish link that doesn’t go anywhere. Yet. In the near future, a Spanish translation of the Temple Preparation FAQ will appear. I hope to expand into the occasional podcast as well, on topics of scripture and history. For the time being, though, you’ll have to be content with what I’ve been able to transfer.

I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about my pages. Generally, people find them helpful and uplifting. In a few cases, they’ve been answers to prayers. As those temple pages grew in popularity, they also rose up the rankings of google, making them easier to find. I’ve recently had hits from Saudia Arabia, New Zealand, Malasia, and Japan, to name a few. In order to keep up that kind of visibility, I ask you to create links to these pages. If you linked to the old one, please change it. Make the text something about Temples, with LDS or Mormon in the title.

Check back in a day or two for updated content, links, features, etc.

Todah rabbah.

Truman G. Madsen. “The Temple and the Restoration.” In The Temple in Antiquity, edited by Truman G. Madsen, (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1984): 1-16.

• Gospelink (subscription required)

Kenneth Godfrey. The Importance of the Temple in Understanding the Latter-day Saint Nauvoo Experience: Then and Now. Vol. 6, The Arrington Lecture Series. (Logan, Utah: Utah State University, 2001.) 41 pages.

Richard O. Cowan. “Brigham Young: Builder of Temples.” In Lion of the Lord: Essays on the Life and Service of Brigham Young, ed. Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996): 227-43.

• Gospelink (subscription required)

Edward L. Kimball. “The History of LDS Temple Admission Standards.” Journal of Mormon History Spring (1998): 135-175. .

• Available electronically from the University of Utah library.
• This paper details the history of requirements, standards, and questions to receive a temple recommend (if they had them at the time) and enter an LDS temple. The implementation and standards embodied by the temple recommend questions have changed over time, but not extensively. An excellent and important article.

Andrew F. Ehat. “‘That they might have known he was not a fallen prophet.’ The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding.” BYU Studies 19:2 (Winter 1979): 133-167.

• Contains first-hand accounts of relevant information on the restoration and early implementation of the temple ordinances.

Lamar C. Berret, “Endowment Houses.”  EM: 456

• Gospelink (subscription required)

• The Endowment house in SLC was used for giving endowments while Temples were being built. Before it was built, LDS were sometimes endowed on Ensign Peak, beginning with missionaries in 1848.

Andrew F. Ehat. Joseph Smith’s Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question -  Master’s Thesis, BYU, 1982. 307 p.

• Available in BYU Special Collections. Though slightly flawed due to the inclusion of some of the then-unknown Mark Hoffman Forgeries, this thesis is nevertheless a highly valuable resource. However,  Andrew Ehat has refused to circulate copies of his thesis and objected to the illegitimate copies available.

Milton V. Backman Jr., and Larry C. Porter. “Doctrine and the Temple in Nauvoo.”  BYUS 32:1-2 (1992):41-56

• Also here.

Donald Q. Cannon, Larry E. Dahl and John W. Welch. “The Restoration of Major Doctrines through Joseph Smith: Priesthood, the Word of God, and the Temple.”   Ensign, February 1989

Richard O. Cowan. “The Unfolding Restoration of Temple Work.” Ensign, December 2001

Alan K. Parrish. “Modern Temple Worship through the Eyes of John A. Widtsoe, a Twentieth-Century Apostle.”  TTE: 143-183.

• FARMS link for subscribers.

Richard O. Cowan. “Sacred Temples, Ancient and Modern.”  TTE: 99-120

Andrew Ehat. “‘Who Shall Ascend into the House of the Lord?’ Sesquicentennial Reflections of a Sacred Day: 4 May 1842”-  TAW:48-62. Gospelink (subscription required)

-Discusses the restoration of the Endowment and the first day it was given, May 4, 1842, in the upper room of Joseph Smith’s red brick store.

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Jeni Broberg Holzapfel. Women of Nauvoo. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992).

-Chapter 9 discusses Joseph Smith’s temple discourses to the Relief Society in Nauvoo, and the introduction of women into the temple ordinances.

Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Mormon Women and the Temple: Toward a New Understanding.” In Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and Cultural Perspective (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 1987):80-111. Posted here by author’s permission. Carol Madsen is currently a senior researcher at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at BYU, and has written broadly on the experiences and history of LDS women. Her own page seems to be down, but she is listed here.