Minecraft Temples

Minecraft users have created some incredibly cool builds, from Minas Tirith to a scale replica of Westeros. For the Mormon crowd though, an innovative fan has built several temples for geeks and the faithful to enjoy. I could say more, but honestly, the artist Justin Tate is far better at explaining it than I am.
Take it away, Justin!

Well ever since Elder Bednar challenged us to share the Gospel on Social media I have felt that is important since that is the direction the world is headed.  I have wanted to think of a creative untraditional way to share the gospel.  Since I have many hobbies such as BMX, flute music, and gaming, I wanted to somehow reach people who are interested in the same hobbies as me.  I only recently thought of this as a way to do that while playing Minecraft with my kids.  It's a game we enjoy playing together because it is very family friendly compared to many of the games out there.  Since we play together creating our own digital world, I decided to build a temple so that we could always have a beautiful temple in view while we are playing.   The first one was the Bountiful Temple, where my wife and I were married.  That was when we only played on The mobile version, Minecraft Pocket Edition.  Then after we started playing the Xbox One edition I needed to build a new temple in that world so we could still always have a temple in sight while we play.  This time I made the Washington DC temple since that is our home temple in real life.
After this, I thought why keep this hidden for only my family to see, when other people could enjoy it too?  The scripture that came to mind was..........

Matthew 5:14-16 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.

So I decided to make a Facebook page where I could collect all my LDS themed Minecraft creations together in one place and hope that some other people may enjoy seeing it.  I also hope that other people will contribute their own LDS themed Minecraft creations so they can be shared with other people too.  I have always thought that if my efforts can at least uplift one person than it is worth it because "Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God;" (D&C 18:10).
So anyway, it may not change the world, but I'm just happy to see that several people have enjoyed my work so far, and a couple people have said how it has uplifted them already and that makes me happy to know.  Hopefully I will be able to reach some people within the gaming community who may have not otherwise heard of the church.

(When I asked what mode he used...)

As for what mode, definitely creative mode haha.  As impressive as it would be to gather all the materials in Survival mode, I simply don't have the time for that.

It's hard to say how long it takes because so far they have been very different.  To be honest, the DC temple was actually very easy to make and only took me about a week of working whenever I had a little spare time here and there.  So it only took a few hours.  The Preston and Mesa Temples on the other hand proved to be much more technical and time consuming.  As I practice, I am naturally learning little techniques to speed up he process.  With my next two temples, I have done a lot more planning and measuring before hand, which I think will help to speed up the process even more.  We shall see how that goes. But as of now, I think it's safe to say that they take roughly a month or so to complete.  My life schedule is very busy so I spread these projects out over an extended period of time.


Since Temples come in several general styles, I want to do one from each style, so they don't blend together and look the same.  I also want to feature some lesser known temples.  You know the big ones like Salt Lake, DC, and Hawaii for example get a lot of attention so I want to surprise people by featuring their temple that maybe wouldn't be the first to come to mind when thinking about temples.  Because they are all beautiful to me.  The first three were significant to me because of my marriage(Bountiful),where we live now(DC/Maryland), and where my full time mission was(England), but after that, I'm wanting to do them for other people.

What do you think?
-JOE