I have been locating some amazing information on temples lately. It’s important to remember that these buildings have special significance in our lives and I’m sure there are many other exciting articles about these buildings.
THE NEPHITE WARRIORS
Brother Samuel Roskelley, recorder of the temple, relates that in early days the United States Marshals were making lots of trouble for the Mormons, and were conducting “polygamy raids” to pick up the men who had more than one wife. Two deputy marshals arrived at the temple door one day to find it locked so they could not gain entrance. Brother Roskelley went out to talk with them. They were told that there were no records available to show them. Brother Roskelley told them good-bye and locked the door. The lawmen knew that polygamous marriages were being performed and did not like being denied access to the records. They immediately wired for help, and the next day the head of United States Marshal for Utah, and a whole posse of deputies arrived. This time they demanded, in the name of the United States Government, that the records be given to them. They were again told that no records were available. The marshal then said: “We know you are doing polygamous marriages and that these records are available. We know you have them, and we are going to have them. We will burn the temple door down or even destroy it entirely but what you comply with our request.” The Recorder told them good-bye and looked the door on them again. Brother Roskelley was very worried and spent the next eight or ten hours in constant prayer, asking the Lord to help him preserve the records, that no harm should come to him or to the people concerned, and that the temple records should not fall into the hands of the United States Marshals. He went out under cover of darkness to visit one of his families in the Seventh Ward area. He was up well before daybreak the next morning, dressed in his oldest clothes, put a corn cob pipe in his mouth, an axe on his shoulder as if he were going to the canyon to work, and walked up the middle of the road whistling a happy tune. As he walked towards the temple and crossed a bridge, two men stepped out to stop him. He immediately struck a match to light his pipe, which had nothing in it, and said “Good Morning” and walked on past the men. Evidently they supposed he was not a Mormon polygamist, but just a woodcutter going to the canyon. When Brother Roskelley reached the front door of the temple, there stood two giant men dressed in complete armor, with head dress, breast plate, spears and full regalia. They gave him a friendly nod as he passed, unlocked the door and entered the temple. As he neared his office, there stood two more large men dressed in full armor. And as he went to the record vaults on the third floor, he came to two other huge men, both dressed in full armor. As soon as he was sure the records were safe, he asked who they were. They told him: “We are Nephite Warriors, and we are here to answer to your prayers.” They then told him not to worry, that they would not allow the temple to be injured or the records to be destroyed in any way. When Brother Roskelley related the incident to President Taylor, he was told that they were, indeed, Nephite soldiers, and that this was not the first time they had been assigned to protect the temple and its people (Nolan P. Olsen, Logan Temple: The First 100 Years, pp. 171-72).
THE VISIT OF ANGELS
In April 1888, the Hales moved to Cache Valley, bringing their voluminous genealogical records with them, and began an extensive temple activity. At this time they arranged with Samuel Roskelley to prepare the sheets for temple work. He kept names in the temple continuously from then unto about 1903. That fall his health began to fail, his eye sight was poor, and he decided to give up all his record work. He brought the records to sacrament meeting one night and game them to Alma H. Hale, and told him it would be necessary to get some one else to take over the work. Jonathan H. Hale wrote: “During the following week, father was very depressed and worried all the time, and was hardly able to work or eat. He could not decide what to do, for neither he nor any of the Hale family knew how to proceed with the work. A great deal of information had been gathered and the family felt a great responsibility to complete the work. The whole family made it a matter of prayer for the week. The next Sunday at meeting, Brother Roskelley came to father and said: ’Bring the records back to me. I have to finish them. Friday evening as I was returning home from the temple, near Hyde Park, a messenger on a white horse appeared by the side of my buggy and said he wanted me to finish the Hale record. He assured me that the work was done right and that it was all being accepted. He said thousands of the Hale family were anxious that the work go on. I explained that I was too busy to do any more record work, and that my eyesight and health would not permit it. Then the messenger made me this promise, that if I would continue, the Lord would bless me with health and strength, my eyesight would be good, and the way would be opened so I would have the necessary time to do the work. He stayed by my side until I finally promised to do it, and then he blessed me and disappeared.’ ”When Brother Roskelley described this messenger to father, he answered, “Why that was my own father, Jonathan Harriam Hale, the first of the Hale’s to join the church in 1834. He died in 1847 at Winter Quarters.'” When Brother Roskelley finally finished the record he said that the greatest load he ever carried was lifted off his shoulders. He had made a promise to a heavenly being and couldn’t rest until the work was completed. He went home that very night and took off his glasses and never wore them again in his life. He enjoyed much better health and found more time for the work than he had hoped for. The Hale family had a week-long reunion in the temple about 1905, when they completed the last baptism and endowment, and then on Friday afternoon the last sealing was done for the 4,000 family members. As President Merrill neared Smithfield that night on his way to Richmond, he turned to tell the temple good-bye, as was his custom, and his heart about jumped out of his body. He could see the temple was on fire, but as he looked at it for a few minutes he was satisfied that there were no red flames licking upwards. The whole temple was filled with light, and the outside of the building shone with a pale pink glow. All the people in the neighborhood gathered to watch the phenomena and said they heard a heavenly choir sing for nearly two hours. Everyone marveled at the sight, for there were no electric lights or others means for lighting the building until ten years later in 1915. The same thing happened the following night, too, with all the rooms and the building lighted, and the heavenly choir singing. President Merrill knew that we had had a very heavenly manifestation. When he reported the incident to President Wilford Woodruff, the president asked what special work had been done in the temple. He was told of the unusual activity of the Hale family and how they had accomplished so much in such a little time. President Woodruff said the Hale and Boynton families had been permitted to come from the Other Side, to sing and rejoice and celebrate their deliverance in the Logan Temple. (Nolan P. Olsen, Logan Temple: The First 100 Years, pp. 173-75).
Satan and the Logan Temple President
Temple President Merrill encounters the Devil, who threatens to stop the temple work from being done.
(Excerpt from “Logan Temple: The First 100 Years)
Logan Temple President Marriner W. Merrill was sitting in his office one morning in the early 1890’s when he heard a commotion outside. Stepping to the window, he saw a great congregation of people coming up the temple hill, some on foot, and others on horseback and in carriages. President Merrill’s first thought was, “What will we do with so many people? If we fill every room in the temple, it will not begin to hold them all.”
The riders tied their horses up at the hitching posts or turned them loose on the temple corrals, and walked complacently about the front grounds, without seeming to have much purpose in mind. They were rather an odd looking group, and were dressed quite shabbily.
They made no effort to enter the temple, so President Merrill went out to greet them and see what he could do for the group. He said to their leader: “Who are you, and who are these people who have taken possession of the temple grounds unannounced?”
He answered: “I am Satan, and these are my people.” Brother Merrill asked: “What do you want, and why have you come here?” Satan replied: “I don’t like what is being done in the Logan Temple and have come to stop it.” That was a bit of a shock to President Merrill, and he answered: “No, we will not stop it. This is the work of the Lord and must go on. You know that you or any one else can not stop the work of the Lord.”
“If you refuse to stop it, I will tell you what I propose to do,” the adversary said. “I will scatter this congregation of people throughout these valleys, and we will keep people from coming to the temple. We will whisper in their ears and discourage them from attending the temple. This will stop your temple work.”
President Merrill then used the power of his priesthood and commanded Satan and his followers to depart from holy ground. He said that within four or five minutes there was not a person, horse or buggy in sight. They just disappeared into thin air and were gone.
Then for the next ten or twelve years we could have closed the Logan Temple, for very little work was accomplished. In one full year, the number of endowments done totaled only 5,121, while in our day we have done, 3,064 in one day. Where all ordinances for the year equaled but 20,110, today we have done 15,456 in one day, and a total of 1,808,265 for the full year.
Christian L. Olsen lived only a half mile from the temple, and he said any time he said out loud that he was going to the temple, something happened to keep him away. One evening he said to the boys: “Tomorrow we will finish grinding out molasses, and then I’d like to spend a week in the temple.” The mill was operating perfectly that evening, but the next morning the main wheel was broken. The more they repaired the machine, the more things broke and went wrong with it. He finally spent the full week making repairs so the only day’s grind of molasses could be completed. He did not get to spend the week in the temple.
Another time when he planned a day in the temple, he got up to milk his cows and the corral gate was open. He spent the day hunting the cows in the west fields. Still another time, the corral gate was open again and the horses were gone. It took two days to find them in Logan Canyon. He said: “Anytime I wanted to go to the temple, I soon learned that I could not say it out loud. I got up, milked my cows, set the bucket down and ran. And then I could get there without any trouble.”
Eight girls left Garland in a white top buggy one morning at 4am, to do baptisms in the temple. Just as they arrived on the west mountain where they could see the temple, a wheel came off the buggy. Before they reached Logan, they had had trouble with all four wheels, a hame strap had broken, the yoke came apart, and there was one delay after another every few minutes. They finally reached Logan at 5pm, after the baptisms were done and the font had been emptied. Some of the men were still there, the font was refilled, and the girls were baptized. They said that Satan followed them all the way to Logan that day.
The evil one’s power and influence are real. He knows the value of temple work and would do anything in his power to keep people away. But he failed to recognize the faithfulness and devotion of the Saints in this area, for they were not easily discouraged.
