Friday, June 19, 2009

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Trip Goes Off With a Bang

On June 30th, my whole family went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. This is the only picture I got, and it's a little over-expossed, but I still like it. It was such a treat to take our children on their second temple trip this year. (The first trip was to the Draper Temple Open House). It has been raining for a couple weeks here and this day was no different! While we were inside there was a lightning storm. Little did we know how close we actually were to the storm because....

Lightning hits Oquirrh Mountain Temple

By Clayton Norlen

Mother Nature added another sight to see at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, Saturday.

As weekend rain and lighting storms moved across the Salt Lake Valley, one strike took a path through the Angel Moroni's golden horn en route to the ground. Steve Allison, a resident of South Jordan who lives near the temple said lightning was dropping in the area Saturday and Sunday it was obvious lightning had struck the temple's unofficial lightning rod.

"(The Angel) is the only thing up there, Daybreak is pretty flat," Allison said. "Saturday afternoon we were getting big strikes, one shook the house and knocked the power out."

Allison said he first heard the temple had been struck when a friend walked into choir practice with a pair of binoculars hanging from his neck. On Sunday streams of passersby stopped to view the damage and take pictures.

LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter said Monday the lightning strike discolored the Angel Moroni statue, but no other damage was reported.

"A work crew will re-gild the statue as soon as possible" he said in a prepared statement.

Deseret News Published: Monday, June 15, 2009 4:40 p.m. MDT


...This happened when we were inside! It was loud, but not that loud. And the power barely flickered, unlike when Jake was at work and lighting struck the road outside his restaurant. The power went out and vehicles stopped running right there. The Temple truly is a special place!

1 comment:

Melanie said...

Your telling me, the Temple is amazing! You'll have to remind your kids of this story when they get older.