What ordinances were performed in the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples?
Gramps, What ordinances were performed in the Kirtland Temple, and what ordinances were performed in the Nauvoo Temple? Thanks. Beth, from Maryland Dear Beth, We read from President Joseph Fielding Smith that the purpose of the Kirtland Temple was not for performing the saving ordinances but “to provide a sanctuary where the Lord could send messengers from his presence to restore priesthood and keys held in former dispensations, so that the work of gathering together all things in one in the dispensation of the fulness of times might go on” (Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.2, p.236). However, some endowment work was done in the Kirtland Temple. The Prophet Joseph Smith recorded the following: “On the twenty-first day of January, 1836, the First Presidency, and a number of the presiding brethren in the Church, assembled in the Kirtland Temple where they engaged in the ordinances of the endowment, as far as it had at that time been revealed” (Teachings of the Proph
