The library is the official archive of the Church.
Knowing about our history helps us understand who we are
and where we came from.
The Lord's hand is absolutely in this work.
I mean, not every day is a gold mine.
But I've had enough experiences in my years
here that there is no way I could deny
that God is in the details.
So, in 1997 we were at a conference in Cedar City,
went to a museum down there.
We were walking through, looking at the exhibits.
And as we walked through, we saw this image hanging on the wall.
And it looked like a mirror.
It was a beautiful frame.
It was quite old, perhaps from the 1850s.
And I was initially confused.
Why would someone in the 1850s have spent so much money
to put an elaborate frame around a mirror that
is so small that you couldn't really
even see your entire face if you were to use it as a mirror.
And, besides that, it was so oxidized
that it was really not usable even for that.
That was kind of puzzling.
You know, why would someone put a mirror on exhibit?
And as we looked closer, we could
see there was something there.
I stood there for a moment, thinking.
And then the light came on in my mind.
What if it is a daguerreotype?
And what daguerreotype is--one of the earliest photo
technologies.
And it involves polishing copper and plating it
with silver that's light-sensitive
and then taking that and exposing it to light.
I studied it and gasped.
I thought that I was seeing the tower of the Nauvoo Temple.
I couldn't believe that that could be what I was actually
seeing, because photographs of the Nauvoo Temple
are exceedingly rare.
And I thought that we knew of every one in existence.
We went back in and talked to the curator of the museum.
And they informed us that this was on loan to them
from the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.
We spoke with them.
And they agreed to allow us to borrow it to conserve it
and to then, also, get a copy of it that we could use.
The problem was that the tarnish was just so much in evidence
that we weren't seeing much of the image.
It was both exciting and frustrating.
We felt that it needed to be cleaned.
But how do you clean a daguerreotype?
About that time, there'd been some technology developed
where you could put the daguerreotype in a solution,
kind of lift off this corrosion and clean off the image.
And so it was sent out to Missouri.
And when it came back, it was this beautiful, clear, pristine
image of the Nauvoo Temple.
So realize, this is the best image that we could come up
with before cleaning, under ideal studio
conditions, ideal lighting.
This, however, was the image after cleaning.
We were seeing a photograph of the Nauvoo daguerreotype
that was better than any known image.
Not only did it show the entire building without blemishes,
but we were seeing this building with a clarity
that we could never have imagined, especially when you
think that the original is this tall and this wide.
We were completely unprepared for the announcement.
In closing, now, I feel impressed to announce
that among all of the temples we are constructing,
we plan to rebuild the Nauvoo Temple.
The new building will stand as a memorial
to those who built the first such structure there
on the banks of the Mississippi.
So, the Monday after general conference,
the Church's architects came to the Church History Department
asking for everything that we could provide
on the original Nauvoo Temple.
We were very pleased that we had a number of drawings
from the 1840s showing the Nauvoo Temple.
And those were exceptional and showed details as fine
as moldings for sections of the tower
and some details for the interior of the building.
But we also showed them this amazing daguerreotype.
They were floored.
Of course they didn't know it existed.
No one had seen this.
What they said was the greatest value of this
was that it showed the way the temple was actually built.
They just couldn't believe that an image of such clarity
survived.
Does the Lord have a role in this?
He blesses His people, and He gives them the things
that they need to strengthen their faith
and to move forward and build this kingdom.