PHOTO ESSAY

President Thomas S. Monson called the new temple in the Philippines the crown jewel of Cebu — a beacon on a hill. It is.

It is not only the most beautiful building itself in the sprawling city, but standing as it does on a slight rise, it also invites everyone to raise their eyes. Cebu City has endless streets hunched with tiny houses, rusting roofs askew seeming to lean against each other for support, street markets thrown up in an hour where people teem and talk, people who will never see much beyond their own personal labyrinth of narrow, bumpy roads.

The temple is built right up against these neighborhoods. Just beyond the temple wall are these exhausted, slightly tilted dwellings, home to people who are somehow joyous and eager — and now they have a temple in their midst. The House of the Lord is a granite statement that announces there is more.

The temple says to the 200,000 members it will serve in the Visayas and Mindanao island regions of the Philippines: You have been faithful over a few things, now you are invited to be faithful over more.

When the early Latter-day Saints knew that their enemies would drive them from Nauvoo, with great energy and fire they carried on two simultaneous building projects — the completion of the Nauvoo temple, built for the generations, and the wagons that would carry them away from their temple. For 56 frenzied days they were able to work nearly around the clock to complete almost 6,000 ordinances for a people to whom this work meant everything. And then they left, but not without a backward glance.

They crossed the Mississippi River, and where there was a rise, they stopped, and with great emotion turned for one last glimpse of their gleaming white temple on a hill _ the temple they would never see again. Those who recorded this moment in their journals say it stayed with them forever, a thought they could not contemplate without poignancy.

We do not have to abandon our temples. In fact, they grow with astonishing frequency among us, with this Cebu City Philippines Temple being the 133rd temple dedicated and 22 others currently in progress elsewhere in the world.

But we still love to etch these temples and their majestic promises and soaring angel into our hearts. Thus the beauty of photography.

In a world that rushes by us so quickly we can hardly take it in, photography freezes the moment. It invites us to really see what we are looking at.

Photography penetrates to truth as it allows us to catch our breaths in the swirl and see beyond the transient. We can catch a glimpse that stays with us; see the angle and reach for the temple through a photographer’s sensitive eye.

In pictures we can capture morning’s first hopeful light, the unforgettable swelling of clouds that will last only a second before fleeting on, the reflection of the sun on temple glass. For our naked eye, it is here; it is gone. In photography it lasts forever.

So come and visit the Cebu Temple just at first light, which is 5:00 a.m. in June in this part of the world. No one is about yet. It is just you and the temple.

Everything around the temple in Cebu City invites the eyes upward. The trees used for the landscaping draws the patron toward the temple on a hill. The early-morning skies here are intensely beautiful and accentuate the beautiful palms.

There is such quiet at this time of morning. The air is nearly at one hundred percent humidity and droplets of water form on everything — including the camera lens.

The moisture continues to gather despite efforts to keep the lens clear of it, forming small dark shadows in the corner of many of the pictures. Morning’s first light gives the new temple a pinkish glow.

Every angle, every stone, every line leads the eyes heavenward.

The gilded statue of the angel Moroni rises 140 feet above the ground, reminding all of “another angel [flying] in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people”

The lovely grounds of the Cebu City Temple will become a gathering place for thousands of Filipino Saints coming to receive the full blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ. “And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths…” (Isaiah 2: 3).

The temple complex includes not only the temple itself — the crown jewel — but also a stake center, a patron housing unit, the temple president’s home, the mission president’s home and a complete underground water treatment facility. As one person said, “we have built a city on a hill.”

Joel H. Johnson penned these familiar words: “For God remembers still his promise made of old, that he on Zion’s hill truth’s standard would unfold! Her light should there attract the gaze of all the world in latter days.”

“His house shall there be reared, his glory to display, and people shall be heard in distant lands to say: We’ll now go up and serve the Lord, obey his truth, and learn his word.”

“For there we shall be taught the law that will go forth, with truth and wisdom fraught, to govern all the earth.”

“Forever there his ways we’ll tread. And save ourselves with all our dead” (Hymns, no. 5).

As one walks about the temple grounds it is as if one can hear the hymns of Zion begin to sing within one’s heart. “For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies.”

“For the love which from our birth over and around us lies. Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.”

“For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night. Hill and vale and tree and flow’r, sun and moon, and stars of light, Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.”

“For the joy of human love, brother sister, parent, child; friends on earth and friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild, Lord of all to thee we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise” (Hymns, no. 92).

“All creatures of our God and King, Lift up your voice and with us sing. Alleluia! Alleluia!”

“Thou burning sun with golden beam, Thou silver moon with softer gleam, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, praise him! Alleluia!”

“Dear Mother Earth, who day by day unfoldest blessings on our way, Alleluia! Alleluia!”

“The flow’rs and fruit that in thee grow, Let them his glory also show, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Oh, praise him! Alleluia!” (Hymns, no. 62)

The exterior of the temple is faced with Mountain Grey granite from China. Interior stone is from Italy and Greece.

The interior features beautifully grained Sapele mahogany from Africa. Several native flowers are used in patterns of fabric and the decorative art painting. The most widely featured motif is the pearl, harvested throughout the Philippines and reflective of scriptural references to pearls and their symbolic value.

“How beautiful thy temples, Lord! Each one a sacred shrine.”

“Where faithful Saints, with one accord, engage in work divine.”

“How beautiful some aid to give to dear ones we call dead, but who indeed as spirits live; they’ve only gone ahead.”

“How beautiful thy message, Lord, the gospel pure and true. In these our days to earth restored and taught to men anew. How beautiful its faith and hope; all mankind it would save, including in its aim and scope the souls beyond the grave.”

“How beautiful thy promise, Lord, that we may grow in truth, and live, exalted by thy word, in endless, glorious youth. With loved ones sealed in holiness by sacred temple rites, worlds without end we may progress from heights to greater heights” (Hymns, no. 288).

Every detail of the temple grounds and interior is completed to perfection. The handrails are polished and beautiful.

“Holy temples on Mount Zion in a lofty splendor shine, Avenues to exaltation, symbols of a love divine.”

“And their kindly portals beckon to serenity and prayer, Valiant children of the promise, pledged to sacred service there.”

“Merciful and gracious Father, purify our hearts we pray; bless our mission of redemption in thy hallowed house each day. Till at length our faithful kindred, sealed with us eternally in celestial bonds of union, sing hosannas unto thee.”

“Sing aloud, ye heavenly chorus, anthems of eternal praise to the glorious King Immanuel! Sing with Saints of latter days!

“Let the mountains shout for gladness and the valleys joyful be, while the stars acclaim the rapture, for the prisoners shall go free” (Hymns, no. 289).

The native flora that bedecks the temple grounds is stunning in beauty and delicate as it gathers the morning dew.

“And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me…

“Both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth…

“And things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me” (Moses 6: 63).

“Thy Spirit, Lord, has stirred our souls, And by its inward shining glow We see anew our sacred goals And feel thy nearness here below. No burning bush near Sinai, Could show thy presence, Lord, more nigh. “’Did not our hearts within us burn?’” We know the Spirit’s fire is here. It makes our souls for service yearn; It makes the path of duty clear. Lord, may it prompt us, day by day, In all we do, in all we say” (Hymns, no. 157).