Barbara McDonald said, "I've never seen people so ready for a temple as our members.  Many of them don't know what it's like to have a temple nearby.  They just know it's something they want with all their hearts."

"Word started filtering out the day that the statue of Moroni was going to be placed on the temple spire," said Barbara.  She drove 60 miles to catch a glimpse of the process.  "I pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car and walked toward the temple.

"I drove up the hill and saw the temple.  It was shining so brightly.  I just started crying with wracking sobs.

"It was a construction area with a fence around it, so you couldn't get in, but many people had come.  While I was there, two women came up to me and asked, 'What is this place?'

When Barbara told them it was a temple, they answered, "I thought so."

Bruce and Barbara McDonald bought a large vehicle so they could transport members of the ward to the temple, beginning with the open house.  "We especially wanted to make sure that new converts got to the temple open house.  "It was something to see them as they went in and quietly looked around until they got into the celestial room and then they just let go of their tears."

This rich involvement of the members began with prayers as the digging started on the temple. Elder William Mannewitz, who oversaw the construction of the temple for the Church said that the temple is sitting on 90 piers dug as deep as 25 feet into solid rock.  When they got ready to dig the piers, an engineer told them, "I guarantee that you'll hit a cavern, but it won't stop the job as long as it's not too big.  We hit a cavern down the street that you could park a concrete truck in. It had rooms big enough you could walk around in them."  At worst, hitting a cavern in this land marked by them, could all but stop the job, at best it meant mounds of paperwork that slowed the project considerably.

Elder Mannewitz said, "We asked the whole temple district to pray that we wouldn't hit a cavern.  On the temple lot, we didn't hit one cavern.  Not one.  To me that's a miracle."

President Hinckley called the San Antonio Temple, a "destination temple," one like the Salt Lake Temple, Washington D.C. Temple, San Diego Temple and Nauvoo Temple, that people will come especially to visit.  He told the San Antonio Saints that there was "none more beautiful" in the interior.

On the exterior, the pavers came from China, by way of Nauvoo.  Seventeen truckloads were brought in which the members cleaned, one by one.  On the interior three kinds of African wood are used.  Walls have hand painted designs, some in gold leaf.

Most breathtaking, however, are the art glass windows—what some might call "stained glass windows."  Every window in the temple is art glass, 200 in all, using 30,000 pieces of individual glass.

Each one is a rich design of color and symbol.  Many depict scenes of the Texas hill country with flowing rivers, trees and a rich array of flowers in the landscapes indigenous to the area.  Texas eyes see blue bonnets, false garlic, Indian paintbrush.  Under the tree of life in the celestial room are sego lilies, which not only grow in Texas, but have a rich heritage in Latter-day Saint pioneer history.

Click here to go to the Part 5, the final part of 16 Minutes of Glorious Light.