Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
MANTI — Scott and Janice Hintze said the Manti Utah Temple can be seen from their home, and at one point their window perfectly framed its view. Each day, they look toward the temple and exercise around it.
"It's just a part of us," she said.
As the Hintzes now help run the temple open house, they're excited to show the pioneer heritage of the building to others. She described the temple as an icon for Manti and said the community feels a lot of enthusiasm about its reopening.
The Manti Utah Temple, built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was the third dedicated temple in operation. It is open for private tours through Wednesday, with public tours beginning Thursday, after the facility was closed for renovations in October 2021.
The public open house begins Thursday and runs until April 5, before a rededication of the temple on April 21.
Janice Hintze said the murals inside the temple look lighter, and more of its artwork now focuses on Christ.
"Everyone loves our little town, and it is because of the temple," she said.
Sacrifice from early members
Elder Jonathan S. Schmitt, general authority seventy and assistant executive director of the church's temple department, invited everyone to come feel love from the Lord, in the temple, during the open house.
He said the unique artwork and murals are "stunningly beautiful," with intricate detail in craftsmanship and needlepoint chairs, but the building is not a museum.
Elder Schmitt said the pioneers sacrificed to build the temple in Manti because of their faith in Jesus Christ — and because they knew the temple was a place where they could receive heavenly power to help them with life's trials, and because families could be sealed for eternity in temples.
"I stand in awe as I think about the pioneers in the Sanpete Valley at that time, most of them living in small homes with dirt roofs, but out of their poverty, they sacrificed and consecrated everything ... to build this magnificent house," he said.
President Camille N. Johnson, of the Relief Society presidency, invited media members at the temple on Monday to think about how Latter-day Saints "constructed a temple worthy of the presence of the Lord" while establishing farms, nurturing their families and managing livestock. She said they sacrificed their time and wealth to build the house of God.
"Their craftsmanship is exquisite, but perhaps more compelling to me is their faith in Jesus Christ and the power in making and keeping promises with God," she said.
She said the saints wanted to make promises with God in the temple and give that same opportunity to their ancestors and their posterity.
"In their sacrifice to keep the promises they had made with God, these people were sanctified and made holy themselves," President Johnson said.
She said she finds the evidence of those members' commitment to the Savior "remarkable," and hopes anyone who tours the temple will notice their attention to detail.
President Johnson said Jesus Christ is the center of everything members see and do in the temple, and she talked about the artwork of him, specifically one example in the lobby of the temple, which was painted by a local artist.
Maintaining historical detail
Emily Utt, historic sites curator with the Church History Department, said workers did "just enough work" during the renovation to help the temple stand for another 100 years.
She said people familiar with the temple won't see many differences, just some new carpet and paint, but a lot of work went into its maintenance.
"These murals took months, as a lot of detailed hard work from conservators working in 1-inch squares, cleaning these murals and getting them bright and clean and just the way they looked," she said, adding that each of the murals needed different preservation methods due to condition.
One room, known as the creation room, took three months to restore as workers cleaned original paintings from 1886, the oldest murals in the church. A bird was found covered up, and Utt shared how the painter used current research on dinosaurs from books to paint dinosaurs into his mural.
The murals in the baptistry required the most extensive work, including removal and off-site cleaning and preservation, while the damaged plaster underneath needed replacement.
Although the Manti temple looks different from other newly built temples, Utt said the local temple helped define how temple ordinances in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are done in every temple.
One unique aspect of the Manti temple is the lack of an elevator. The page to reserve tickets to the open house says a limited tour of just the first floor can be given to those who cannot walk up stairs.
Utt said the church looked carefully at ways to improve accessibility, but determined adding elevators or lifts would damage the historical rooms. She said the church chose to preserve the building, acknowledging the decision could make it harder for some people to get through the temple.
She said they look forward to the opening of the temple in Ephraim, just a few miles from Manti, which will be fully accessible.
The renovations to the outside of the Manti temple included a new entry, a new loading dock replacing the old one at the front of the building and the repair of a waterproofing problem on the east site of the temple.
The temple, like other early temples, has an assembly room for members to gather, which is accessed by using a unique spiral staircase. Everything in the room is original except for some upholstery on the seats.
A beacon
Original glass panes hang in the assembly room, and President Johnson said the light fixtures were added later, when electricity became available, but the temple was built with natural light in mind.
Now, she said the temple serves as a beacon and that can be seen around the valley, especially when it lights up at night.
"We're so pleased that all of our neighbors and friends will have an opportunity to see what's happening and what's inside that light on the hill that they've observed," President Johnson said.
Scott Hintze said sometimes, when he worked in the field at night, he could turn lights on the tractor off because of how bright the temple lights are.
He said the difference with the Manti Temple's open house and other temple open houses, people visit this temple because of connections they have whether through family history or their own experiences. He said everyone has a connection.
