Sunday, October 28, 2012

Angel Moroni

The temple spire is up.  It's time to put the Angel Moroni on.


Close up of the spire.
The statue was shipped in this crate from Salt Lake.

The cable is attached.
Three men were sent up in in a basket to set the Angel in properly. 
        There is a hole in the spire, in which a rod will fit in just so.  Attached to the rod were two cables:  one was the lightning protection cable and the other was to secure the statue.  The cables are fed into the hole in the spire.  Someone was inside who could get the cables as they were lowered and then secured the statue from the inside.  The lightning cable is eventually taken all the way down into the ground.







A lightning spike will replace the cable after the statue is in place.



That was cool!  The Salt Lake office liked this picture.
Awesome!
President and Sister Anderson of the Fort Lauderdale Mission.
Our temple project missionaries, Elder and Sister DeGraffenreid from Kanosh, Utah.

               What a privilege it was to be able to witness the placing of the Angel Moroni on top of the temple.  There was some worry about an approaching hurricane.  In fact, the statue was placed on the temple a day early because of the impending storm.  It was originally scheduled for Thursday, October 25th, but instead was done on Wednesday.  Prayers were sent up so the weather would cooperate.  It was somewhat windy, but did calm down.  I love the picture of the clouds opening up right over the angel and the light shining through.  There was a little bit of work that needed to be done on the top of the spire so the Angel would fit on properly, but everything went very smoothly and it looks magnificent!

I love that the flight patterns for Fort Lauderdale airport fly directly over the temple!  And being close to the freeway, there are thousands and thousands of people who drive by every single day!  Wonderful things are happening here and lives are being touched!  It's difficult to express into words how blessed I feel that we are here doing this amazing work!  I couldn't ask for a better life than this.