Hong Kong, China - Mormon Temple
The Mormon Temple is a holy place set apart from the outside world, whereas the Mormon Church’s are filled with weekday activities and Sunday worship services. In the Temple, sacred ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are performed.
Because the Mormon Temple is a unique place, only the finest materials and craftsmanship are used in its construction. After the temple is dedicated, Church members wear white clothing while inside to symbolize purity, cleanliness, and the setting aside of things of the world.
In the Mormon Temple, families can be united in the most sacred of all human relationships; as husband and wife and as children and parents. Through priesthood authority from God, marriages are performed that can endure throughout this life and for all eternity. To share these blessings with our ancestors, Mormons perform temple ordinances in their behalf. This is why members of the Mormon Church are so interested in genealogical research. Members research to seek and identify ancestors so that the temple ordinances are performed in their behalf and so that families can be together forever.
Those who enter the Mormon Temple can find the peaceful serenity the Savior promised his followers in the New Testament: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you."1
The Mormon Church in Hong Kong has changed drastically since the first Mormon missionaries arrived to preach the Gospel in 1853. In the 1950’s the missionary effort was unproductive and the Church made little progress. It was not until 1950, a century later, when eight missionaries were sent back in to Hong Kong to teach. However, they were taken out of the country and relocated because of the Korean War. Missionaries were sent back in to Hong Kong in 1955 and by 1960 there were 91 full-time foreign and 12 full-time local Mormon missionaries preaching the Gospel.2
President Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Mormon Church, announced that there would be a Mormon Temple in Hong Kong in 1992. However, finding a place in which to build would be the obstacle. President Gordon Hinckley considered numerous temple sites, but was unsatisfied with all. "We looked at one after another…I became very discouraged; the sites were so tiny in some respects and the cost of real estate was so high, many millions of dollars for a little piece of ground." He recalled retiring to bed and awoke with an impression to have the temple built on the site of the mission home and chapel.
Because of the situation of Hong Kong city, the Mormon Temple had to be ‘built up’ instead of ’spreading out’ to build. It was the scarcity of space in that crowded land that contributes to the unique design of the Hong Kong Temple. This six-story building is designed to house, not only the Mormon Temple, but also a chapel, mission offices, and living quarters for the temple president and several missionaries.3
The dedication of the Hong Kong Mormon Temple took place on May 26, 1996. Many that attended the Temple Open House were impressed that amid the traffic and confusion of such a busy city, and wherein lives one-fourth of the inhabitants of the earth, there is such peace and tranquility found so easily inside the Mormon Temple. The Hong Kong Temple serves Mormon members from parts of India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Guam, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Cambodia, Micronesia, Majuro, and Indonesia.
To learn more about Mormon Temples please visit the following websites:
Temple (Mormonism) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC - Religion & Ethics - Mormon Temples
Manhattan Mormon Temple New York City.com : Arts & Attractions …