Positive impressions include LDS Church humanitarian efforts

The LDS Humanitarian Center and the Draper Utah Temple were among the stops on the itinerary of a group of five Jewish rabbis from the Los Angeles area during a Utah tour March 4-5. Their trip was organized by the LDS Church's Southern California Public Affairs Council working with church public affairs in Salt Lake City.

One of the California public affairs representatives, Mark Paredes, said the rabbis spent time at BYU and touring the temple in Draper on the first day of their tour. Included on their schedule the second day were Welfare Square, the LDS Humanitarian Center and Temple Square.

Each of them shared some of their impressions with the Church News as they toured Temple Square.

Rabbi John Borak who works in Los Angeles said, "What I will take back is a new understanding and a new appreciation of how much Jews and Mormons have in common in terms of how we try to live our lives in this world." That includes, he continued, making this world "a better place for all people during this lifetime and trust in the work of God for the world that will come next."

Rabbi Jeff Marx from the Santa Monica area said he has long been involved in Jewish genealogy, so the highlight of the visit for him was touring the Family History Center. "My greatest frustration was I wanted to spend days there and I only got a few minutes. It tortured me," he said with a smile. He was impressed with efforts to digitize the records that are on microfilm. "I'm really looking forward to seeing it all on computer."

Rabbi Richard Spiegel from the Thousand Oaks area said, "Everything we've seen has been fascinating" and called the Draper temple "something beautiful to behold."

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This story is provided by the LDS Church News, an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is produced weekly by the Deseret News.