And I saw another angel fly …

The hallmark of our temples is the statue of the angel Moroni,symbolic of the prophecies found in Revelations 14:6-7 and Matt 24:31. Early figures of the angel Moroni were made of bronze, copper, or aluminum, and were very heavy. (The bronze figure on the Washington D.C. Temple weighs approximately 2 tons, or 4,000 pounds.) Today’s figures are made from lightweight fiberglass, and weigh only about 300 pounds. We are told the angel on top of the Accra Ghana temple is 13 feet tall and weighs 350 pounds.

One of the requests of the city council that approved building a temple here was that there be a statue. A large statue. They got it! The temple grounds are easily the loveliest spot in town.

Maintaining the statue in good condition may require it being replaced every few years as the natural elements do erode the surface of the statue. Sometimes it can just be cleaned to make it look like new.

This year the Angel Moroni was scheduled to be replaced atop the Accra Ghana temple. It was interesting to watch how they would do that. The pictures below show various stages of preparing to remove the statue. You will note that no crane was used in this process.

For anyone who has been in construction of very tall buildings, working on scaffolding like this may not have been a problem but I certainly was not ready to join them any time soon.

Each segment of the scaffolding was handed up from one person to the next until it was at the level they needed it.The wood planks are made of very hard wood and are quite heavy.

Finally (about two weeks) it was time to attach the statue to a lift and raise it out of the spire so that it could be replaced. The wench was activated and the statue was raised. Unfortunately the engineers under estimated the weight of the statue which was too much for the “L” shaped wench and it bent leaving the rod two feet short of clearing the spire.

With not alternative than to leave the statue and try again another year, the engineer from Salt Lake City took a cloth and some soap and water and cleaned all the dust, grit and grime off the statue. It actually cleaned up very nice and looks as good as new.

We took these pictures as they made progress in replacing the statue. Someone else happened to capture this shot. Never know what you’ll see here!

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