The snow sparkles when the sun shines on it

The snow sparkles when the sun shines on it.

The other day Amy called to tell me I’d had a small influence on Zack. A newly fallen snow had just covered the earth and she suddenly heard Zack yelling, “Mom! Mom! Grandma was telling the truth! The snow does sparkle when the sun shines on it!!
We’d just spent Christmas with Amy’s family and it had snowed a lot. Everyone seemed so upset by all the snow. I told Zack that the snow can be really beautiful and that it sparkles when the sun shines on it. Somewhere that thought was stored away in his little boy brain and he was looking for the sparkle and on that day, he found it.
Last month Scott shared with me some interesting facts he’d learned about the chandeliers in the new Draper temple. The designer for the temple lives in our stake and her husband, who is on the High Counsel with Scott, shared some enlightening information about chandeliers. When I heard what he had to say, I thought about Zack and how the snow sparkles when the sun shines on it. Here’s what I learned.
The creation of a chandelier is an elaborate and very intricate process. The inside base is made from Copper, Brass or Iron. The frame has hundreds of tiny holes—because most of the crystals are placed
individually by a little hook that attaches to the hole. Some of the crystals are already in a ring that goes around the base. Part of the challenge is making sure you’re placing the right sized crystal in the right location because the sizes typically are supposed to alternate larger, smaller, larger, smaller to create the design and the lighting/prism effect.
It takes 4 or 5 people about 3 or 4 hours to do one this size for a sealing room. The much larger Celestial room chandelier takes that many or more people a couple of days. Each Crystal itself is unique, regardless of size, in that because of the way it is formed and where it is placed on the chandelier it reflects light and even colors can be seen as in a rainbow. Another interesting fact is how the crystal is made. A crystal is an amalgamation of lead and glass. The glass used to make crystals is made from fine sand. The sand is heated to a very high temperature until it melts and can be formed into the needed shape and allowed to cool. Lead has to be mixed in with the sand to come up with a crystal piece. The right proportions of these substances have to be well calculated so imperfections can be avoided.
When Pres. Hinckley was asked by a certain dignitary, what meaning is to attach to having these beautiful chandeliers in the Temple sealing rooms and Celestial room, he said simply…to give off light!
There is an obvious metaphor here. A prism only becomes beautiful when it reflects light. In darkness a prism is nothing to look at. We, like these prisms, only reach our potential when the light of Christ shines through us.
“The Lord said, “Trust me, learn of me, do what I do…If you follow me, I will lead you out of darkness”
One prism is beautiful but many prisms together, reflecting the light off of each other is extraordinary. We also can become extraordinary when we are carefully placed by the Lord to reflect his light to each other. Every crystal is part of and contributes to the whole just as we are, when we take upon us the name of Christ and become part of His church.
Each prism must go through a refiners fire just as we must go through a refiners fire to know of a surety that they have a loving Heavenly Father and that the Atonement is available to all.
I love the temple because it is filled with light. Not only the light from these beautiful chandeliers, but it is filled with the light and truth of Christ and when the Son shines on us, we truly do sparkle.