My little elderly mother lives with us and she is still TBM and she wanted to go see the new Payson temple so we got tickets and took her yesterday. This is my report.

The first thing you notice is that it is in a residential area but the church has widened the road leading to it and put islands down the center of the street with plants and decorations. It is very pretty but looks very commercial except for all these little houses lining the street. It looks out of place to say the least.

So you get to the temple and it is very similar to the Provo and Ogden temples from the outside. It has been probably 20 plus years since I was in the Provo temple so I don't remember much about it but from the outside it has that same style.

There is an older church that is right there boardering the temple grounds and we had to gather there first. They made us watch a video that was full of BS about families being together forever and how inspired JS was to build temples. The video was boring as church and full of lies. I must say though that the production was very professional and a lot of money was spent on it.

So we watched the video then they herded us down the long sidewalk to the temple. At the entrance they have all these teenagers sitting there putting little booties on everyone. Quite the personal touch I must say.

Then you walk into the temple and that is where you see all the money that was spent on that building. There are crystal chandeliers that must be at least two feet diameter or larger and they are absolutely beautiful and lavish. The crystals sparkle like diamonds and it is very obvious that they are of the highest quality available. I did a little research and my guess is that each one cost in excess of $250,000 bucks. There are probably more than 20 throughout the temple.

The floors are beautiful marble and some of the work in them is very intricate and they are beautiful as well. There is carpeting in some of the rooms like the celestial room and it is very high quality. I told my wife I bet the carpet in one room would cost half what our whole house is worth.

The furniture is lavish and very expensive and very beautiful. It is obvious from the moment you step into the building that no cost was spared on anything. The woodwork is beautiful and it is all dark cherry.

The baptismal font is large sitting on 12 oxen. You walk into the room and there is marble flooring all around it. You look down into the room below which is where the oxen are standing. The floor down there was all intricate marble as well. The floor where the steps lead up out of the font are recessed so that the waterh runs back down into the font. Its pretty cool actually. Steps on both sides lead to the boys and girls dressing rooms. Pretty cool looking and awe inspiring but then when you think about what is done there it is very morbid. A bunch of kids getting dunked over and over for people who are dead. Wow why don't people run the opposite direction when they hear stuff like this???

I have traveled for work some, not a lot but some and I have been in some very expensive elaborate buildings but I have never been in anything that rivals the money spent on this temple. The windows are all beautiful stained glass and they even have stained glass windows in the ceilings of many of the rooms. My wife said she felt uncomfortable because everything was so lavish and expensive.

All in all the building is exceptional as far as beauty and workmanship. I would bet the church spent many millions of dollars on it. My guess when my wife asked me was 100 million but what do I know.

Anyway to me it was all about money and show and lavishness. It was like someplace you would expect the uber rich and famous to go like a lavish day spa or something. Definitely NOT a place for common people to worship their god unless their god is money and that is the feeling you get when you go in that temple, that it was built to worship money. The whole time I was in there I kept thinking about that crazy vision in the B of M where Lehi sees the large and spacious building filled with people laughing and mocking the poor average righteous people. To me that is what this building was built for.

So that is my report. The building is absolutely beautiful in every way even down to the landscaping. It does not seem like a building built to worship a god but a building built to worship money. My wife was saying afterwards that the church could have done so much for so many in need with the money they spent on that and I said well at least the temple is built for worship, City Creek Mall on the other hand was built with 5 BILLION dollars and it was built for nothing more than to worship money. To me it is obvious where the church's priorities are and they are NOT in god.

I was very impressed with the building. It is beautiful and extravegant and worth more than any building in the whole town of Payson and the surrounding area as well. Aside from all the paintings displaying Christ or other religious scenes you would never know it was a place of worship for a religion. I did not wish I were still a member so that I could go there to worship because I don't worship money and that is the only thing you could worship in that temple. Since that was the first time I have been in a temple in probably 25 years I was not sure how I would feel but I can say after having spent an hour walking around it I do not miss anything about the temples or the church.

So that's my report for what it's worth and for anyone who cares.

thanks for the report... from your post you said

"It is very pretty but looks very commercial except for all these little houses lining the street. It looks out of place to say the least."


Wait till you see the one in Haiti next to the shacks and people with nothing.
Moroni should be posed with his middle finger extended.

kind of a F-U to the poor wouldn't ya say

Well reported, Craig. Thank you.

How can anyone think that a place like that would have anything to do with the Jesus character of the bible myth?

The Mormon cult is off it's rocker!

How many people could they feed and educate with one chandelier?

Hundreds of thousands of Mormon families scrimped and sacrificed and went without FAMILY vacations to pay for that monstrosity.

Oh, wait, they just started another one down the street, in Cedar City, and there's already one in St. George. If Utah Mormons are righteous enough, they will be as frequent as interstate rest stops. Western saints can't possibly drive over an hour to a temple! That's "date night" (must get home to drive the YW free babysitter home after she also cleaned the house and did the dishes-training for her only role in life).

If there was a Jesus, he would enter that temple and barf on his Berkenstocks (excuse me, booty covered Berkenstocks).

Thanks, very familiar with the area. Left Utah 3-4 years ago. Was just talk then. What a ostentatious display of wealth.

I heard that Jesus himself went shopping and purchased the $250,000.00 chandeliers.

Don't worry though, no tithing money was spent. Jesus used his savings from when he was a carpenter.

To me, the temples all look like hotel lobbies to me, especially the front desk where people check in by showing their cards. The difference between a hotel lobby and the celestial room is that you can actually sit down and relax for a while in a hotel's lobby while someone will eventually ask you to leave the celestial room.

No wonder. God is a jealous god and wants us to spend a lot of money on him. Didn't Jesus say this? The more money we spend, the more we are saved. I know I really want to be saved BIG.

Reminds me of when I went to the Gilbert temple open house. The highlights for me:

1. I was immediately pissed by the sickly-sweet video -- a video that is full of complete lies, half-truths and false associations. I almost didn't make it past that, but it is fairly short.

2. I too was startled by the craftmanship and appointments, but in my opinion new temples are more and more heavy on the luxury and "wow" factor, and less focused anymore on the actual temple work. For example this temple has only four ordinance rooms -- the same as the Mctemples like Rexburg that are half the size. The point is to get people to pay up to get in them -- not that they need the "size" because of the long lines of people waiting to get in or the thousands of names needing to be done. It's like staying at the Four Seasons 5-star hotel, except in actual fact the Four Seasons is WAY cheaper.

3. The tour people and guides and even the mormons who are touring are just so IMPRESSED by the things -- like they are giving you a tour of heaven -- it is just so over-the-top and annoying. It reminded me of touring in China years ago before things opened up, back when you had to be escorted around by government people who went on and on about how great things were, and they were just so impressed. Of course we were all thinking my god what an oppressive, culty insufferable country.

4. Overall it is a monument to the length people will go to keep people believing the emperor has no clothes, and because the whole thing is all a big SELL job (this is nothing like going to the Koln Cathedral, or the Taj Mahal, or the Vatican, where there is history, art and culture, but NO SELLING) it is just offensive pretty much, and ends up being neither culture, nor art, nor architecture, but just a giant luxury time-share pitch -- that's how it all feels.

This description reminds me of my friend's impression--she's an ex-mo--whose SIL took her on the tour of Payson's temple. She was sitting with a group of dressed-up women in the celestial room with the earnest, IMPRESSED, tour-woman who was asking them if they couldn't just feel the peace. She looked around at all the earnest woman with her and then just felt an overwhelming sense of sadness as she thought about all these eager, dressed-up women and what they WEREN'T thinking about: the CK is where their husbands get a bunch of polygamist wives and they've got to be at peace with taking their turn with him. She wanted to cry.

I recently had to purchase a very expensive chandelier for work. I was slightly taken back by the price and our architect laughed and said, "they paid 500,000 for the ones in the Payson temple!" So 250,000 may be a little low. I am not going to go there and check it out, so I will trust your description-thanks!

"I would bet the church spent many millions of dollars on it. My guess when my wife asked me was 100 million but what do I know."

Remember just a few weeks ago, when the church proudly announced that it had donated a million dollars to the Red Cross from ticket sales of "Meet the Mormons?"

That puts things in perspective, doesn't it.