Understanding Mormonism

In many ways more interesting than Jehovah's Witnesses. Unless of course you have loved ones or something like that in the Witnesses then it's it's not. But there is certainly much more to be discussed when it comes to the subject of Mormonism because as I said with Jehovah's Witnesses you have a narrow spectrum of doctrines topics and beliefs but you need to know them in depth.

With Mormonism it's a wide spectrum but not nearly to the same depth. And so generally I like to give a warning before giving this presentation and that is because of the speed with which I have to do it.

The danger is I'm not presenting it in the slow way that Mormons would present it and so the result is you listen to this and you go how could anyone ever believe something like that. And as a result you figure you can just go out and tackle the Mormon missionaries which you might be able to do.

I mean they're 18 years old for crying out loud. You know I've met a few that were somewhat knowledgeable at most but not but these groups have their apologists. And it's one thing for us to understand Jehovah's Witness apologists can be very very challenging and they can be very very good at what they do.

The Witnesses have their apologists as well. The danger of this presentation is you see it you go. No one could ever really believe that. And yet many many many people do. Which is a clear illustration of the fact that intellectual capacity and spiritual understanding do not necessarily go hand in hand.

You can be tremendously brilliant. I know I know Mormons who are engineers Mormons who are authors Mormons who are involved. And there's a lot of Mormons in the police force around the world. In military they are.

They tend to be really nice moral folks and yet they believe what I'm gonna tell you they believe. I mean I'm not making this up. I've witnessed over 5 ,000 LDS missionaries. We went to the General Conference the Mormon Church every six months for 18 years stood outside and passed out tracts and witnessed to people for hours on end.

I've done debates in Salt Lake City against staff members from BYU and the University of Utah and and I've got I don't know how many thousands of volumes of LDS works in my library and Mormonism is what got me into apologetics.

It was two more missionaries elders Reed and Reese who I'm sure do not to this day wish to be known as the two guys who got me into apologetics. But shortly after I was married I was 19. My wife was 18.

My wife's an identical twin. Two more missionaries showed up at my in-laws home. They saw this cute little 18 year old blonde and they're like oh let's witness to her and so she asked me to come over and we met on a Monday and a Thursday.

I read a couple books on Mormonism in between time and that's what started it is. When we were finished with those conversations I was convinced of two things. First of all I clearly did not know enough about what they believed to be able to communicate with them in any meaningful fashion.

I already sensed the massive language barrier that that separated us. And secondly I didn't know enough about what I believed even though I was a preacher's kid even though I've been raised in a Christian family and in comparison to all the other kids in the youth group I knew more about what I believe than they did.

But that wasn't enough I I needed to know much more and I need to think through it too much a much deeper level. So that was what started my studies. Over the next number of years I studied Mormonism pretty much on my own.

I I started going to the LDS bookstore because I read all the Christian books I could find on Mormonism and I saw them regularly citing these other books teachings the Prophet Joseph Smith marvelous work in a wonder Jesus the Christ articles of faith by James Talmadge Joseph Fielding Smith's the teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith Mormon doctrine by Bruce R McConkie.

And so I started going to LDS bookstore and buying them and which which led me to my first interesting experiences. There was a nice little lady named Mary at the LDS bookstore at 35th Avenue in northern in Phoenix.

It's not there anymore but that's where it was at the time and and the first day I had to buy a fairly expensive book or a set of books and I had to write a check. I didn't have the cash to do it and so I wrote out the check and and I start getting out my my check card and she says oh I don't need that.

What's your ward number. So they're on a standing ward number. What do I do. Do I make one up 654 and end up you know making a fool of myself or so I was honest I said I'm I'm not a Mormon. And she's oh that's fine I'll take the card then.

But you keep reading these books and you will be soon you know it's just a sweet little lady. And and so I grew my library and I read these books. And as I'm reading all this stuff reading for example here's here's the LDS scriptures.

This is called a triple Book of Mormon Doctrine Covenants for a Great Price. The three standard works outside of the King James Version of the Bible. They have four standard works King James Version of the Bible Book of Mormon Doctrine Covenants for a Great Price.

So I read the Book of Mormon. I read Doctrine Covenants for a Great Price. I'm marking all this stuff. I'm taking all these notes and I just came to the point where I thought there's there's just no way that I'll ever remember all this stuff.

How do I put all this stuff together. Thankfully what I did is I started witnessing to Mormons a lot going out to the Mesa Easter pageant in Mesa Arizona and going up to Salt Lake City. Dialoguing with Mormons is what solidified it all in my mind basically.

But for I didn't have anyone to lead me. I didn't didn't have anyone to say okay you know let's put it into a nice compact way of understanding it for you. And so what I'm going to present to you today is what I wish I had had this would have saved me years quite literally if I had had this presentation but I had to do that so you could have this presentation I guess.

And so I'm gonna give you a graphic and by the way I just want you all to know that Thursday evening I completely redid this presentations graphic just for you. I mean even the folks in Hilo last week when I did this same presentation they had a graphic that I had put together from a word document when my daughter was in sixth grade and I performed her wedding ceremony last July.

So it was a long time ago. Now you'll have a nice clean colorful pretty one and you'll be the first ones to see it. So tap yourself on the back give yourself whatever congratulations is in Hawaiian I'm sure it has an M a W a K and L and a vowel in it.

Am I right. I bet you it does and I can guess it does not have a V or a Z or end in ski in it either. So anyways let's dive into it. I like to. When I started studying the Mormons I came to some conclusions without ever talking to anybody.

They're just conclusions that I've lived my life on my ministry. It will be 30 years old next year. It's been it's been full 30 years now since I met with those two more missionaries and so over three decades of this of this work now I've lived by the the credo basically that when you study a group for example Shane was trying to shame me into studying Buddhism a few minutes ago and I just looked at him and said no.

And if he tries to push me there are certain videos I have on my system that I will be playing on the screen in the next few minutes. So I have I have some things on on Shane. So he needs to be careful.

So besides that I have the dividing line webcast and I'm frequently on TV. So just be careful. What you do anyway if I'm going to study a group I am going to study what they say about themselves. So I was going to the LDS bookstore buying LDS books when I studied the Jehovah's Witnesses I bought all the Jehovah's Witness books.

When I started debating Roman Catholics I obtained all the cans decrees the Council of Trent and Vatican to and all the rest of stuff. And now that my heart is primarily in the study of Islam. My Islamic library grows and grows and grows and unfortunately that's very expensive.

It's a lot cheaper to buy LDS books than it is Muslim books I assure you. But I you know I feel it's vitally important to know what a group says firsthand not just what Christians have said. That group says because I've discovered that sometimes believe it or not even Christians can be somewhat inaccurate somewhat biased maybe even a little bit prejudiced in what they have to say about certain groups.

So our first series of quotations before I get to the graphic comes from the Achieving a Celestial Marriage student manual. Copyright 1992 by Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Now why do I give you all that information. First of all 1992 wasn't that long ago. No matter how even if you're young you were probably still around 20 years ago. It was used for over a decade as the primary manual that couples who are going to be married in the LDS temple had to go through before they could be married in the LDS temple.

You had to go through and you had to take this course. Secondly it's from the church for the church this is the Mormons talking to the Mormons. This isn't Christians talking to Mormons. This is Mormons talking to Mormons.

And so you can't get much more representational than what the church itself the president which is the prophet of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is what they copyrighted. And you know this is pages four through five which means this wasn't buried in the back of the book someplace.

This was the first thing that you were supposed to study as you and your future spouse went through this class in preparation for marriage in the temple. Pages four through five. God was once a man who by obedience advanced to his present state of perfection through obedience and celestial marriage we may progress the point where we become like God.

This is the first thing it says. God was once a man and he progressed to his present state of perfection by obedience and through obedience and celestial marriage. And God himself was married in a temple on another planet.

On celestial marriage we may progress the point where we become like God proclaiming the divine potential within man. John Taylor once wrote. Knowest thou not that thou art a spark of deity struck from the fire of his eternal blaze and brought forth in the midst of everlasting burnings.

Elder B .H. Roberts stated. Man has descended from God. In fact he is the same race as the gods plural his descent has not been from a lower form of life but from the highest form of life. In other words man is in the most literal sense a child of God.

This is not only true of the spirit of man but of his body. Also can you see the implications of these two statements as they relate to you and to your eternal destiny. Elder James E. Talmadge did he declared quote in his moral condition man is God in embryo.

However any individual now a mortal being may attain the rank and sanctity of godship. End. Quote articles of faith page 529. Now by the way articles faith is a book that I've read and it is one of a series of books that is normally given as a gift to the young elders before they go on their mission.

Now my experience is they rarely read those books before they go on their mission but they have them on their shelf someplace when they go on their mission. How is this possible. What course of action will bring this potential to fruition.

As you study this lesson look for the answers to these questions. Then you have points to ponder. Underline. God became God by obedience to law. God became God by obedience to law. Now if God becomes God by obedience to something what came first God or law?

Law did. The law existed before God became God. Now if you're thinking as a monotheist that doesn't make any sense to you but you need to realize Mormonism is the most polytheistic religion that I know of of all the religions of men I've had Mormons seriously defend the concept to me that there is an unlimited number of gods in the universe says unlimited infinite number.

One of the reasons they did that is I point out to them. Well if there's an increasing number of gods today because every worthy Mormon male feels he can become a god after he dies there's an increasing number of gods today.

Then there's a decreasing number as you go back in time. And if it keeps decreasing you eventually get the first God according to Mormonism. What was he before. He was a god he was a man. So who created the first man to get away from that.

They say no that's not. That's not logically accurate because there's an infinite number of gods. You can never get back to the first one. So it is a polytheistic religion. They prefer the phrase plurality of gods.

And because what you believe about God and whether God is self-sufficient whether God is the creator of all things there's only one true God. Or if there are many gods because that's the most basic element of a religious system that I suggest to you as one who has studied in depth both religions that Islam is considerably closer to Christianity than Mormonism is considerably closer.

Muslims believe in one eternal God who created the heavens and the earth. The Muslims do not even believe God can create matter. He cannot say let there be light. He can only organize pre-existing matter.

And he himself was once a man who lived on another planet. In fact the God of this world lives on a planet that circles a star named Kolob. Now you tell me which is closer to Christianity. Yes the Mormons talk about Jesus.

But he's one God amongst many gods as we will see. And so Mormonism while they use our language they use a different lexicon to define the meaning of those words. And even in this conversation we're about to read between a mature Mormon and a lesser mature Mormon.

You will see how that language difference manifests itself very clearly. So here is the conversation. It was late afternoon as we sat in my office but I felt the time had been well spent. He sat silently now obviously contemplating the ramifications of the things we had been discussing.

We had talked of God of how he had become God and of what that meant in terms of our own exaltation. Finally he spoke. What is this law of exaltation of which you keep speaking. Well it involves the whole of the gospel law.

Everything required of us by God is associated with this law. But the major crowning point of the law which man must obey is eternal marriage. Therein lies the keys of eternal life. Or as the Doctrine and Covenants puts it eternal lives.

In other words and in eternal increase of posterity. Let me just stop right there. There's your first example. The Doctrine and Covenants talks about eternal lives. That is an eternal increase of posterity.

In Mormonism one of the attributes of being a god is that you can have children spirit children. And if you are not exalted to the highest level of glory your body's changed and you can't have spirit children.

And so eternal life for us is one thing. Eternal lives is the ability to have lots of spirit babies after you die now. That's a massive difference. That's a huge difference. And yet most of us would just have that go right past us because we're not familiar with what the background is.

Then what you're saying is that God became God by obedience to the gospel program which culminates in eternal marriage. Sub point through obedience to law we can become like our Father in heaven. Yes.

Do you realize the implications of this doctrine as far as you are concerned. I think so if God became God by obedience to all the gospel law with the crowning point being the celestial law of marriage then that's the only way I can become a god.

Right. And it is the law that assists us in reaching that potential. It tells us what we must do to gain the ultimate freedom. In fact it is by obedience to law that we have progressed to our present position.

Now the next screen the second paragraph is one of the most amazing short paragraphs I've ever read in Mormon literature. And I've read a lot of Mormon literature. But notice I haven't put it up because every time I start telling people this they stop listening to me and read the paragraph.

So this time I just give you a warning and tell you what's coming and then put it on the screen. You mean we have always been governed by law. Here it is always. You are an eternal being. You were never created and you cannot be destroyed.

But you can advance progress and develop by obedience. You see why I say Islam is much closer to Christianity. Muslims believe that you are created by God and that God can destroy you. Mormons do not even believe you're created and you cannot be destroyed.

You are an eternal being. You know whenever I read that paragraph I think of a certain creature in the Garden of Eden who said and you shall be as God's. And we have this in Mormonism where you don't have a God.

God himself is an exalted man. You're a God. In embryo. We're all the same class of beings just at different levels of progression. It shares much more in common with the paganism of the old world. That does with Christianity.

The next line also proves that this is written by a frustrated English major from BYU. Then Hamlet's question to be or not to be is not the question. All that is so corny that is just I laugh every time I read it.

Right. Not in the ultimate sense. At least order means law. And that law is the law of the celestial kingdom. Any who come under that kingdom must obey that law. Anything you see that says see DNC. DNC means doctrine and covenants.

That's the that's the primary doctrinal element of the LDS scriptures the Book of Mormon. Doctrine and covenants and pearl of great price. But I thought godhood meant freedom. If I have to do things to become God am I really free.

You have got it wrong. It was the Savior who said if you continue in my word that is obey the law. How do you like that. For exegesis you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. So by obedience to law we learn truths by which we become free but not free from the law.

Can you see that. I think so. I can only be a god if I act like God. Exactly right. Can you imagine the state of the universe if imperfect gods were allowed to spawn their imperfections throughout space.

If beings who did not have law under their subjection were free to create worlds. That sounds like science fiction to you. This is coming from the LDS marriage manual. I guess that would be pretty disastrous.

But I'm not sure. I see why celestial marriage becomes the crowning apex. This progression marriage doesn't seem directly related to the creation of the universe's. Oh but don't be limited by your mortal perspective.

God himself has declared his own reasons for existing. Remember he said for this is my work. In my glory I see his purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Now before you turn to your Bible and start looking for Moses 139 that's not in there either.

That's in the pearl of great price. And here you have in the Mormon scriptures their own in essence self-admission that their God's primary purpose is wrapped up in man. How else it could it be. He's an exalted man.

How different from Christianity which involves giving birth to spirit children and saying them on the road to exaltation. And if that is to be done you must have an exalted man and an exalted woman. Exactly an exalted man and woman who have been joined together in an eternal marriage.

If this man and woman were obedient to all gospel laws except celestial marriage what would be the result. They still could not be gods. Now I understand celestial marriage is the crowning ordinance of the gospel.

Right. I said with a smile. And with that comment I think we can end the discussion. Now people normally look at me and go come on really gods and spawning imperfections through space and creating worlds.

I mean we know you're a Trekkie. But really honestly this is what the Mormons believe. Yes this is what the Mormons believe. So let's give you I think the easiest way to understand what the Mormons believe.

This is not an amway chart. Just in case you're worried here is the new version. I should have kept the old version around just so you can see how much nicer this is than what we had before. But this is the universal translator.

This is the means that I have provided you of in essence translating Mormonese into Christianese. And if you can get a hold of this then you will understand the heart and soul of Mormonism. And you'll be able to at least understand why the Mormons are saying what they're saying.

And at least on your part make sure at the conversation that you have with them is useful. It's somewhat of a circle it starts in the upper left hand corner and ends in the upper right hand corner. But as in any circle you have to jump in some place.

And so we start in the upper left hand corner and I'll blow that up. Here we start with intelligences and matter. Intelligences and matter are the two eternal things in Mormonism. Now what is an intelligence.

Well I've actually met some Mormons that didn't believe in intelligences but most do. An intelligence is in essence the the essence of what becomes a spirit child now that doesn't make much sense to you either.

You'll notice spirit children is the next part. It's the the arrow goes down to spirit children. In Mormonism any sentient being has existed as an intelligence. It's a it's a disembodied not even spiritual.

It's just the the the intellect element of the sentient being before it enters into a spirit child. Now you need to understand in Mormonism even spirits are made of matter. Joseph Smith taught that they are made of matter.

But that's such a refined matter that's not visible to the physical eye but it's still made of matter. And so the intelligence would sort of be almost the soul or essence of the spirit child. And from the LDS perspective all of us have eternally existed in that way.

We cannot be created. Remember we just read that you weren't created. You have eternally existed as an intelligence just as well. God eternally existed as an intelligence Elohim of this world. And the God that he worshipped and the God that he worshipped before that and the God before that.

On back into eternity. Intelligences cannot be created. Matter cannot be created. God cannot say that the Christian doctrine is creation out of or into nothing that God can say let there be and there is.

Mormons say God can't do that. God can only organize pre-existing matter. He can change its shape. He can change it from physical to spiritual in the sense of being more refined. But it's still matter.

So God is not in this box. God is not eternal. God has not eternally been God. If you are a Mormon today and you became a God obviously not eternally been a God. And so when we talk about the eternal things its intelligences and matter from this realm and a means that we will only be able to stand at the end of the chart we enter into the realm of spirit children.

Spirit children are born of exalted and exalted father and exalted mother. That exalted father and mother have physical bodies of flesh and bone no blood. I'll explain that later. Even though they're physical they have spiritual offspring.

As we will see according to Mormonism you and I all existed as spirit children before we came here to earth. We don't remember that. And Mormonism does not give us a dogmatic explanation of why that is.

Most Mormons would simply say the reason we don't remember the spiritual pre-existence is because that memory has been taken away from us. So we can be tested in this probationary period in a in a proper way if we remembered the pre-existence and we really wouldn't show our true character.

But interestingly enough you must realize Mormonism is a very much American grown religion and especially back in the late 1800s early 1900s in Utah where believe me even today going to Utah is like going on a foreign mission field.

It really is. You cross that border it's just weird. Many of those towns down you know Kanab and places like that in southern Utah are 98 percent Mormon. And it's it's I can't imagine what it was like back in in the day.

And the Mormon ladies back there had a much more sensible explanation of why we don't remember our spiritual childhood in the pre-existence. Because you see spiritual babies are born about the size of the little baby coming in right now.

And we have some other little babies with us and they make little noises and stuff like that. But the problem is even that little baby is much bigger than when the baby was born already. Right. And when you're born as a spirit child you're born little and you grow.

And because remember you're made out of matter. So you have little spiritual baby diapers and little spiritual baby bottles and you know you have little spiritual baby hair that eventually grows out and and little baby spiritual fingernails that you have to trim and the whole nine yards.

It's just like the physical existence. And so their theory was that you know you can grow up be a six foot tall spirit spirit being and but then when you get crushed down into the size of an embryo you lose your memory.

That was that was what the Mormon ladies came up with it. And if I were you I would not argue with the Mormon ladies about this particular subject. So spiritual pre-existence. Let's go back to the big one here now let's go down to where the the square is and blow that up from the mortal from the spirit realm we enter into mortal probation.

That's where we are right now. That's life on a planet. And this is where we are being tested. That's why it's called probation. And there are two ways out of here. There is one arrow that goes up to paradise and there is one arrow that goes down to spirit prison.

Now the arrow that goes upward to paradise is of course the Mormon arrow. It is for the members the faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. And what you have here is a little A and a B next to it and let me go back so you can see what the A and the B are.

You can see down there at the bottom. A is faith repentance baptism laying on of hands and B is continued obedience to gospel rules and principles. So the A represents what's called the four fundamentals of the gospel the four fundamentals of the gospel absolutely minimally to get into celestial glory you have to have the four fundamentals of the gospel faith repentance baptism and laying on of hands.

Now the problem here is that what they mean by these words and what we mean by these words again have sometimes subtle sometimes major differences. I don't have the time to go into all the differences in regards to faith and repentance.

But there are differences in light of the fact that they don't believe that Adam for example fell. They believe he fell upward that he was placed in the garden specifically to fall and that he did exactly what God the Father and he had decided was going to happen when he ate of the tree he was given two contradictory commands.

One was to be fruitful and multiply. The others not to eat of the tree. Since Eve had already fallen the only way he could be he could be fruitful and multiply was to eat himself. So he did the right thing in partaking of the fruit.

So Mormonism does not have much of a doctrine of sin on that level. They certainly have a doctrine of sin. They have a very strong concept of worthiness and and moral laws. But their understanding of things like original sin and depravity completely unbiblical.

And so faith and repentance are a little bit different than we would understand. Baptism has to be done by someone minimally holding the Aaronic priesthood. And the Aaronic priesthood which was allegedly restored the earth in 1829 by John the Baptist was given only Joseph Smith is possessed only by the church Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints.

So baptism by immersion must be done by someone holding the Aaronic priesthood and then laying out of hands to receive the Holy Ghost is to be done by someone holding the Melchizedek priesthood which was restored to earth by Peter James and John and also given to Joseph Smith and only found in the LDS church.

So baptism laying out of hands only the LDS version thereof is is acceptable. Okay those are the four fundamentals. Then the B was continued obedience to gospel rules and principles which in essence we would identify with generally as a works salvation or works righteousness concept.

There is a strong push for Mormons to be worthy of entering into the temple for example to even enter into the Mormon temple to receive your priesthoods if you're a male if you're to if you're to be married in the eternal marriage ceremony if you're to go through the endowment ceremony for somebody else etc etc you have to go through a temple recommend interview with your bishop to see if you're worthy.

If you're living the rules the church to some point there are many bishops in the LDS Church who require you to bring your tax forms with you to make sure that you are tithing on the gross and not the net.

That's how very stringent these interviews can be. So that's the A and the B. Now even with that there are only 14 million Mormons in the world and so there are six billion people in the world and so that's a small percentage a very small percentage and Mormons don't even believe that all Mormons are going to go straight up to paradise.

There are many Mormons who are simply going to be unworthy of any and all of that. But even if all 14 million went that's still a small percentage of comparison. So the vast majority of folks go down from the mortal probation into the spirit prison.

And we've got to give the Mormons some credit. They are a missionary people. They do a lot of missions work. They really really do and in fact they are so missions minded that they don't get to stop going on missions even when they die because worthy Mormons will come down from paradise to the spirit prison and proclaim the Mormon gospel in the spirit prison.

And I've never really figured out how it is that you could do that and not be very very successful. If I'm in a prison and somebody comes and says this is how you get out of the prison and they can come and go as they wish.

Why would I not do what they said. But from the Mormon perspective a lot of people still won't. A lot of people still won't. But there are some who do. And hence the line that goes from spirit prison up to baptism for the dead.

Because remember what are the four fundamentals of the gospel. Faith, repentance, baptism, and laying on of hands by someone with the proper authority. Well here's the problem. A spirit can have faith and a spirit can repent.

But it's very tricky to baptize a spirit by immersion in water. Ever tried it. It's very hard you know you just keep pushing down and nothing happens. And laying on of hands on the head you know whoop whoop doesn't work.

So that's what baptism for the dead is for now. You have a you have a temple here don't you. Where's the Hawaii temple at. Okay where is that from here. Okay once again it was a word with one L and a bunch of vowels.

So really helps me a lot. You know. Is it is it on this island. Okay so it's on this island. Anybody did anybody here happen to tour it before it opened. Because they normally have an open house you can tour it.

You didn't get a chance to do that. That's shame. It's very interesting to do. I finally got a chance to do that in the opening of the Brooklyn to Manhattan Temple Manhattan Temple. But so you have a temple here.

The temple is very different from the ward chapels or stake centers you might see in your neighborhoods only worthy Mormons are allowed in the temple once it has been dedicated. And if you were to go over to did you say Laie Laie Laie.

Oh I thought Arabic was bad. Abdullah Ibn Masud say that three times fast. Ha see. I'm starting to feel dumb because I can't say these Hawaiian words. But anyways if you went over to that place it starts with an L and on a weeknight other than Monday night and you were just park outside and watch you would see people coming in and they'd be carrying these these little bags with them.

And they're going in either to be baptized the dead or to go through the endowment ceremony for the dead or maybe for themselves. But generally they're doing it for the dead. And what they'll do is they will have done their genealogy work if you if you've ever looked up your own genealogy gone on ancestry .com or something.

It's Mormon. The Mormons bought everybody else's genealogical libraries a long time ago. If you want to anything about your ancestors you gotta go the Mormons. It's just it's just the way it is. And so they've done their genealogy work and and they will come in with as many as 50 names.

It's all done electronically. Now it's all done digitally now. It used to be you had them all written out and and stuff but now it's all done electronically and these names are put into the system and they're put on a card.

You bring the card in now. I remembered the graphic that I was going to. I was going to grab and and stick in here. Let me make sure I can come back to this because I I thought I actually saved this graphic and I wanted to put it in here but I forgot to do so.

But I can I can grab it very very very quickly here. LDS. Oops there it is. That's a good shot right there. This is the one from the Washington Temple and let me drag it over here for you. Oh that is a little bit on the small side.

What do you think. That's because it didn't open up in the program. Here we go. It's still a little bit small but it'll work all right. There's the baptismal font in the Washington Temple and you will notice that it is built on the back of 12 oxen so that it is if you remember your Old Testament the there was a laver in Solomon's Temple that was built in the back of 12 oxen and up until the Atlanta Temple every baptismal font in the LDS temples was below ground level.