The Temple Faces East

 Have you ever looked up at the statue of Moroni and pondered why he points east? Yes, it is said that the Savior will come from the east during the second coming. I believe there is more than one reason the Temples face east. Think about the ordinances performed in the temple, families sealed together. We stand in as proxies for our ancestors being baptized, the endowment and sealing husband and wife, parent and child. The temples point east because our ancestors came from the east. The Temples point east to remind us of the prophecy of Malachi and the Spirit of Elijah.

Malachi 4: 5-6

5 ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Maroni faces east telling us to look east, to go east and connect with our ancestors and their descendants. Whether that means literally moving back to the eastern US, where the Church was first established, or to Missouri, or England or Europe, or just doing research, that is up to the Spirit of Elijah. But the way I see it, you can't make the real connections to distant relatives by staying in Utah. The Prophets have bean telling us for years Zion is where you live. Zion is not Utah. The call to go west ended in the early 1900s, yet Mormon Zionists still flock to the West. It is time to turn around, look east, go east, connect with your ancestors, find your cousins still on the east coast whose ancestors stayed behind after Joseph Smith was martyred, whose ancestors never were baptized.

We are all connected. That is the whole purpose of the Book of Mormon, to show how the Native Americans fit into the seed of Abraham. Yes, their may be historical questions, but the message that we are all from the same seed is one the world needs to hear. This is a land of promise and freedom, but it is also the land of their ancestors. We need to make room for the Refugees, not just physical space but room for their culture. The Book of Mormon speaks of our time.

Alma 26:6

6 Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them.

There is a change coming. There is a storm coming. Call it Global Warming, call it what you want, but we can't give in to the fear like the Right Wing is doing, closing our borders and stocking up on weapons. Instead, we need to make room for "Climate Refugees," Open new Bishop Store houses, and open our hearts to those in need because they are our brothers and sisters. They literally are our cousins! That is what you learn from doing genealogy. With all the new features on Familysearch.org we can see just how connected we really are!

There is a change coming, a social change and it is coming from the east. It is a change of more acceptance. It is a change of recognizing that we can not be made to fit into a mold. If one does not fit the mold we do not cast them away. We show love and compassion not to convert, but because we recognize we are already brothers and sisters. We are cousins. We need to turn around and face east. We need to turn our hearts to our ancestors and the children of our ancestors.