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My Sister-in-law sent me the following email. "... the temple is so important, I was thinking what has it been like for you as missionaries seeing the people of Rome and the temple site and all that it has taken to get the temple started, and the sacrifice of those saints - is there any way you can write somthing that I can share with my Relief Society sisters on the temple in Rome? I want them to feel how blessed we are to be surrounded by temples (in Utah) as there are those who have waited their whole lives for a temple to come ..."I asked our Stake Patriarch, Brother Calabrese if he would share his feelings and testimony regarding the temple. He said, "It would be an honor for me to do this." What follows are his words, though he asked me to fix his "poor English so they would understand it better."
When in the October 2008 conference, Pres Thomas S. Monson said that there were 5 new temples and one appointed to Rome there was in the conference room in Salt Lake City and Italy an explosion of joy, there were members who were crying, those who jumped, others praying, and others that screamed of happiness to the Lord. The Saints in Italy had prayed, fasted and worked tirelessly for this event to happen.
Now they still had to pray for the City of Rome to give the authorization to build. Half of the land for the temple site was agricultural and not zoned for building. But a miracle happened: the last act of the incumbent mayor was to change the zoning of the ground to be urbanized.
The next hurdle (after the zoning was changed) was for permission to start the actual building. The period for granting the building ranges from 1 to 5 years. Italian bureaucracy for these events is very complicated and long. But the prayers, fasting, the efforts of many members (including those passed on to a better life), all the missionaries, Church leaders at all levels have been answered. Another miracle, the most important has happened. The permission was granted in one year and 1 month. Only the hand of the Lord could make this happen so fast.
On October 23, 2010 our beloved Prophet Thomas S. Monson gave the first blow of a pickaxe (the Italian term for ground breaking). An impossible dream has happened to our human eyes. The construction of the Temple began.
My wife and I we were baptized in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy on 07.07.1983 and 09.04.1984 we were sealed in the Bern Switzerland Temple in Zollikofen. The journey to the House of God with the train took 24 hours and the cost was U.S. $ 750.00, but having paid our tithing regularly to the Lord, He blessed us and allowed us to enter his house.
Today we are closer to the Swiss Temple because we live in Rome. The journey by car takes 10 hours and the cost is U.S. $ 650.00.
When the Rome Temple is built, the trip from my home to the Temple will only be 15 minutes and the cost U.S. $ 4.00 and I will rise each day to go 2 times to the Temple and it will be my privilege to enter. What a great blessing Heavenly Father has given us. We will be eternally grateful to God for this great gift. The Temple will be the greatest missionary and I feel that the Stake of Rome in a few years will double.
This is the will of God and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the Church of the Savior. I know that God and Jesus Christ live and have called Thomas S. Monson as the President of Their Church.
I share this personal testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. - Brother Calabrese
Now they still had to pray for the City of Rome to give the authorization to build. Half of the land for the temple site was agricultural and not zoned for building. But a miracle happened: the last act of the incumbent mayor was to change the zoning of the ground to be urbanized.
The next hurdle (after the zoning was changed) was for permission to start the actual building. The period for granting the building ranges from 1 to 5 years. Italian bureaucracy for these events is very complicated and long. But the prayers, fasting, the efforts of many members (including those passed on to a better life), all the missionaries, Church leaders at all levels have been answered. Another miracle, the most important has happened. The permission was granted in one year and 1 month. Only the hand of the Lord could make this happen so fast.
On October 23, 2010 our beloved Prophet Thomas S. Monson gave the first blow of a pickaxe (the Italian term for ground breaking). An impossible dream has happened to our human eyes. The construction of the Temple began.
My wife and I we were baptized in Syracuse, Sicily, Italy on 07.07.1983 and 09.04.1984 we were sealed in the Bern Switzerland Temple in Zollikofen. The journey to the House of God with the train took 24 hours and the cost was U.S. $ 750.00, but having paid our tithing regularly to the Lord, He blessed us and allowed us to enter his house.
Today we are closer to the Swiss Temple because we live in Rome. The journey by car takes 10 hours and the cost is U.S. $ 650.00.
When the Rome Temple is built, the trip from my home to the Temple will only be 15 minutes and the cost U.S. $ 4.00 and I will rise each day to go 2 times to the Temple and it will be my privilege to enter. What a great blessing Heavenly Father has given us. We will be eternally grateful to God for this great gift. The Temple will be the greatest missionary and I feel that the Stake of Rome in a few years will double.
This is the will of God and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is the Church of the Savior. I know that God and Jesus Christ live and have called Thomas S. Monson as the President of Their Church.
I share this personal testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. - Brother Calabrese
A photo with Brother Calabrese in September 2009.
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful testimony of Temples.
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