Does anyone recall talks about using a regular meeting house as a temple? The building would be dedicated for temple use on certain days and then dedicated back to a meeting house when done.
This was an idea floating by SW Kimball in the 70s. My father was at a solemn assembly in the 70s where Kimball discussed this. A couple of rooms would be dedicated as a temple, and locked otherwise. Portable veil, etc. No one liked it at the time. Then Hinkley tweaked the idea and built small temples. Now it was inspiration. Yup, buildings that sit empty the vast majority of the time.
I was on my mission when I heard about this. The RS room would be used to show the film and a portable veil would be used. Everything that is done in a temple could be done in the RS room and use of the font. Just think, you could have that big wedding in the chapel, Say I do, go str8 to the RS to be sealed, out the meeting house door to have rice (bird seed if your concerned about blowing up birds) in your face, then back inside to the reception and then off to a Marriott for the conception. It's a shame that meeting houses stand empty 6 days a week, taking up realestate. One of my old stake centers opened the building up to the neighborhood kids so they could play basketball. They found that vandalism to the building stopped when they did that.
I do remember this even as recently as when I joined in 1995. The Stake centers I was told could be easily renovated into temples during the 2nd coming.
Hmmm. The only possible reason this would be considered is to gather in those who aren't paying tithing because they couldn't afford to go to the temple anyway.
Portable carrot when stick is not enough.
I'm sure that would take the mystery right out of it when the boys accidentally bust out the portable mumbo jumbo veil room divider for the scout awards dinner.
The Endowment House was just a temporary temple until the SLC temple was finshed (which took 40 years!). It wasn't like doing endowments in a house. They had so many sealings to do with so many horny men to please that they had to do something.
Glenn Pace spoke at my mission and shared his idea (partially in jest) of a 747 converted to a temple. It lands, pops up an angel Moroni, and all the locals can go through for the week. Then it takes off and visits another location. I thought it was a pretty sweet idea.
Older meeting houses did have rooms where people held prayer circles just like at the end of the endowment. SLC formally forbid the practice in 1978 but I think it had become very uncommon by then.
There were a lot of ideas floated back then. It was the First Mormon Moment, during the time when missionaries were quite successful. The "stone cut without hands" was thought to be rolling forth. The LDS church still offered some modicum of enjoyment before the ever tightening of the wagons happened. They envisioned people wanting to go to the temple all the time and there just not being enough temples available. They envisioned a happy lot, engaged in the "Work of the Lawd." Instead, the church became sillier at first, then an unhappy, uncaring corporation. Like a housewife when it starts to rain, the church ran out and collected all its laundry on the line and hustled inside. Since those times, the truth of the history and origins of the church have been buried deeper and deeper, and the leadership more unhappy and insular. Any time a new situation arises or a new question is posed, the facts get buried deeper and deeper. There is no magic in Mormonism now. There are few converts, and getting an unhappy people out to the temple is like pulling teeth.