One of the announcements mysteriously missing recently from announcements at the Semi-Annual Conference of the LDS Church was the building of the new Payson Utah Temple. Well, at least that would be the case for a lot of people in Payson. There have been rumors rampant in Payson for the last 9 months that there was going to be a new temple in Payson. Actually, there is a “prophecy”, at least the legend of a prophecy of a local Payson Bishop and Stake President that they had, in vision, seen a temple on the ridge above our home in Payson.

Earlier this year a builder, who wants to build homes on the rocky ridge above our home, had tried to encourage that rumor so he could get approval, without going through the actual process of getting approval, to build a housing development on the ridge. While one wonders why anyone would want to invest money in such a program right now because of the financial crisis in our country, there was still an effort by that builder to paint the Payson City Council and Planning Commission as bad people because we had not fawned over him when he presented the plan to us.

Instead, he has gone to a Stake in our area, and after talking about the “Payson Utah Temple” has painted us as the bad guys and put our name in print as the people who are obstacles to this dream. Maybe someday we will get a temple, and I would have loved to hear that announcement in General Conference, but for right now it doesn’t appear that dream is to be.