Visitors to the Historic Kirtland Temple Share Their Experiences as Site Reopens for Public Tours

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By Trent Toone, Church News

Sandy Jones first learned about the Kirtland Temple when she was a 14-year-old girl.

Having never heard about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before, Jones was curious. She walked through the woods and crossed a stream to find the tall, white building next to a cemetery with grave markers dating back to the 1830s.

“I said, ‘Who was here?’ I had never seen something like this. I sat and looked at this building as it glistened in the sun. I could feel something different when I was there,” she said. “I kept coming back. That was the most amazing experience I had ever had.”

Many years later, Jones learned more about the Kirtland Temple and the Church before deciding to be baptized.

• Listen to this Church History podcast about Kirtland

Now 83 years old, Jones and her husband, Alan Jones, participated in the first public tour of the Kirtland Temple hosted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Monday, March 25, even climbing up 66 steep, narrow and winding steps to the attic level. Tears flowed freely as she expressed her feelings about the Restoration of the gospel.

Newsroom The Kirtland Temple and Historic Buildings in Nauvoo Are Open for Public Tours

“Each time I come I can feel the Spirit. When I sit on the lower level, I want to cry as I’m sitting there because I know that’s where Joseph [Smith] was sitting,” she said. “This is the Restoration. You cannot miss this, and I don’t know why others don’t realize this. This is one of the most important places where it started.”

The couple was among several hundred people who came for a tour of the historic temple — the first Latter-day Saint temple built in this dispensation — 20 days after it was announced that the Church acquired the temple, along with other historic buildings, documents and artifacts from Community of Christ.

Visitors came from all over the United States, including California, Idaho, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Utah, Washington, D.C., Oklahoma, Ohio, Indiana and Minnesota, as well as Australia and Ghana, according to the senior missionaries serving at the historic site.

The first tours also took place two days shy of the 188th anniversary of the dedication of the Kirtland Temple on March 27, 1836.

Elder Kyle S. McKay, a General Authority and the Church’s Historian and Recorder, participated in the Church’s first public tour of the Kirtland Temple with his wife, Jennifer.

“I was thrilled just to watch the people and to watch our missionaries,” Elder McKay said after the tour. “I loved watching the people as they responded and there was a reverent atmosphere. It was a sweet thing to behold.”

‘One of the Greatest Days of my Life’

The tears continued to flow freely for Joyce Anderson as she and her husband, Karl, stood inside the Kirtland Temple shortly before the tours began. Karl, a historian who specialized in Kirtland, also served as a stake president in Cleveland and a stake patriarch in the Kirtland Ohio Stake.

“This is one of the greatest days of my life,” the 87-year-old said. “It’s hard to express.”

When a friend called to tell him the Church had acquired the Kirtland Temple, his friend said he needed to sit down before he could tell him why he called. After their conversation, Anderson wondered how he should feel? The news was so wonderful, should he sing or shout?

“I knew nobody wanted to hear me sing, and shouting, Joyce said we never do that,” he said. “I called Joyce over and we held hands, and I said a prayer of gratitude. ... What I feel is gratitude and joy, but it’s gratitude most of all.”

Weeping, his wife said: “It’s wonderful. I’m grateful to be here. It’s a miracle.”

Sister McKay felt similar feelings of gratitude and joy.

“It feels to me like the coming together of generations of work. We rejoice today. They rejoice with us, and one day all of Heavenly Father’s children will rejoice because of what we’ve experienced.”

Preparing for the Tours

Preparations for the Church’s first public tours of the Kirtland Temple started last January, more than a month before the March 5 announcement, Elder McKay said.

A team of historians and writers were assembled to develop tours for the Kirtland Temple and the Nauvoo buildings, including the Smith Family Homestead, Mansion House, Nauvoo House and Red Brick Store.

Aaron West, a senior historian and writer with the Church History Department, helped write the materials used in the tours.

“It’s really a wonderful experience to be a part of the whole process and to see it come together so beautifully,” he said. “The missionaries are doing a great job.”

President Scott Barrick and his wife, Shauna, who serve as directors of the Church’s Ohio Historic Sites, received news about the acquisition of the Kirtland Temple about 15 minutes before the announcement. “We were as surprised as anybody,” he said.

The Barricks immediately began working on assembling and preparing senior missionary couples to give the tours. They currently have 16 couples, with some serving temporarily.

They will receive more help during the summer season when nine sister missionaries arrive on April 18, followed by another 10 sisters on May 30. These sisters are called to a regular proselyting mission but spend the first four months at the Ohio Historic Sites.

Once the content of the tour was finalized, it was a matter of learning how to present it. The couples did practice tours with local Latter-day Saints, received feedback and worked on keeping the tour within the allotted hour time frame.

At the same time, the missionaries provided space for members of the Community of Christ who were vacating the Visitors’ Center next to the Kirtland Temple.

“It’s been an interesting process,” President Barrick said. “Our hope, like all of our other historic sites, is that people can feel the reality of what took place here. It’s not just a nice story, which makes it different than any other historic site. It is that the things that happened here have eternal significance. These are not just historical spaces, they are sacred places. We want people to be able to leave with a sense that they have had an experience with the sacred while they are here. If we can help them feel that, if they can feel touched and blessed, that is our highest hope.”

The Church’s First Tour

Elder Bart Davis and his wife, Sister Marion Davis, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, led the first tour on Monday.

Tours of the Kirtland Temple start at the Visitors’ Center every 30 minutes and last an hour Monday through Saturday (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) and on Sundays (1-4 p.m.). Reservations are not required. Tours are limited to 25 visitors.

The tour begins in the Visitors’ Center, where a massive window provides a breathtaking view of the Kirtland Temple through the trees, then proceeds through all three levels from the ground floor to the second floor and the attic area. For those unable to climb the 66 stairs, there is an option to see images of the upper floors.

Parts of the tour featured the building’s structure and architecture, but it focused mostly on what historical and spiritually significant events took place there. Occasionally looking at index cards, Elder and Sister Davis told about the following:

• Joseph Smith receiving revelations recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants (sections 95 and 137).
• The dedication of the Kirtland Temple on March 27, 1836 (see section 109). The tour group was invited to sing a verse of “The Spirit of God.”
• A solemn assembly that took place on March 30, 1836.
• Easter Sunday, April 3, 1836, when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery saw Jesus Christ and were visited by Moses, Elias and Elijah (see section 110).

After reading from Doctrine and Covenants 110:7 where it reads that Christ had accepted the Kirtland temple as His “house,” Elder Davis asked those in the tour, “Can you imagine hearing that from your Lord and Savior?”

The experience brought history to life for Marie Knapp, of Preston, Idaho, and her young family, including her oldest son, Tytan Knapp, who just received his call to serve in the Philippines Baggio Mission. Their family arrived early Monday morning and waited an hour for the first tour.

“I think it makes history come alive to them. They can envision what happened and where it took place,” said the Latter-day Saint wife and mother. “It’s simply amazing that we can be here and be part of this experience — the Savior, Joseph Smith, our pioneer ancestors — simply amazing and beautiful.”

Elder Davis said he and his wife felt the Spirit as they led the first tour and described it was a “sweet experience” to serve in the House of the Lord in this fashion.

Kelsie Ogden, a Latter-day Saint from Dallas, Texas, was in the area and stopped to walk to the temple grounds early Monday morning before leaving town. It was her first visit to one of the Church history sites and she hopes to return at some point for the tour.

“I couldn’t help when I drove up that it was just shined, with the sun coming up, and just a beautiful day to see it. There is just a special spirit here,” she said. “I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see such a beautiful temple and see something that was a foundation to our Church. I am glad that I can at least come see it with my own eyes and be able to feel the Spirit that’s here.”

Gratitude for Community of Christ

Standing outside the Kirtland Temple Monday, President Nathan Johnson of the Kirtland Ohio Stake spoke about the excitement among Latter-day Saints following the announcement.

The rejoicing of Latter-day Saints in Kirtland for the temple is similar to the rejoicing of all Latter-day Saints around the world, President Johnson said. But locally, he added, it’s bitter-sweet because of their close relationship with their “good neighbors and friends” in Community of Christ, who have a congregation that meets in a church right across the street from the temple.

“We know for them this has been difficult. This is really a time of mourning for them. They’ve been such good stewards of this place for so many years,” he said. “We now feel the weight of that responsibility to care for it the way that they have.”

President Johnson continued: “We see this as a sacred place. It’s not our temple, and it’s not their temple, this is the Lord’s house, and we want it to continue to be accessible so that people can come here and have significant spiritual experiences.”

Karl Anderson agreed.

“They have been friends for the over 50 years that we have lived here. They have always maintained that they didn’t own that temple, that they were only caretakers, that it was the Lord that owned of the temple,” he said. “My greatest wish is that we don’t celebrate so much the acquisition of the temple that we forget it is Lord’s house. They have set an example for us.”

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