Temple of the Five Rooms

One of the biggest tourist attractions in California is a Mormon temple. Each day this week, some 5,000 to 8,000 visitors are walking through the brand-new Los Angeles Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to see the largest and most magnificent of the ten Mormon temples in the world.* On Feb. 18 the temple will be closed to repair the carpets and wipe out the finger smudges left by this invasion. After its dedication on March 11, the temple may be visited only by Mormons in good standing--and by these only after they put on white robes and slippers.

It cost $6,000,000, stands on 25 acres and is 257 ft. high, topped by a golden statue of the Angel Moroni./- From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. tourists are waved to parking spaces by white-coated attendants, then assembled in groups for a silent tour (no questions until afterward) of the huge building.

After listening to a recording which explains that the temple will not be used as a house of public worship but for ceremonies only, visitors see the baptismal font in the basement (stainless steel, supported, like the priests' washbasin in Solomon's Temple, by twelve brazen oxen). Then they visit the recorder's office, where

Mormons may look up the names of their ancestors to be baptized "for" them. They see the third floor Assembly Room (capacity: 2,600), and the marriage "sealing" rooms and a room for the instruction of brides. But most interesting is the second floor, containing the Five Rooms--"a series of classrooms explaining the purpose of life, where we come from, what we are doing, where we are going."

No. 1 is the Creation Room--ovalshaped, with murals of the sun and moon. No. 2 is the Garden of Eden, "where," reads a sign, "Adam and Eve made their great decision." Next is the World Room, with murals inspired by Death Valley, which "represents the lone and dreary world, the testing ground." No. 4 is the Terrestrial Room, "fourth stage on the path to celestial glory, the step before entering the Celestial Kingdom." One of its walls opens onto the fifth room decorated as a luxurious sitting room, with well-upholstered chairs and settees, delicate murals and elaborate chandeliers.

This represents the Celestial Kingdom itself, "where exalted man may dwell in the presence of God."

* The other nine are in Logan, Utah; Cardston, Alta., Canada; St. George, Utah; Manti, Utah; Mesa, Ariz.; Honolulu; Salt Lake City; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Bern, Switzerland. /- Who told Founder Joseph Smith in Manchester, N.Y. Sept. 21, 1823 about the golden tablets that held the fundamental tenets of Mormonism.

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