Oakland Temple Visitors’ Center Dedicated

Elder David B. Haight of the Quorum of the Twelve recently dedicated the Oakland Temple Visitors’ Center, a 22,000-square-foot building located on the Oakland, California, temple grounds. Modern electronic and video equipment, easily accessible to visitors, offers viewers answers to questions about religion, families, and the restored gospel. In addition, the sixth largest family history center in the Church is housed in the lower level of the center.

“We have met here this day, our Father, to present unto thee a newly finished facility,” said Elder Haight, in the dedicatory prayer. “Two vitally essential activities of thy church—the missionary work of proclaiming the gospel and the ever-expanding family history search for family linkage of ancestry—[are] joined together … , on this sacred plot of land, [in] a gospel teaching and research facility using the most modern teaching skills to declare and testify of the reestablishment of the Church of thy Son, Jesus Christ, in these latter days.”

Hundreds of business and civic leaders and local clergy toured the facility, as well as the public. After the dedication, Elders J. Richard Clarke and L. Aldin Porter of the Presidency of the Seventy conducted workshops on family history and missionary programs for Church leaders from most of the sixty-eight stakes in northern California.