Emmeline B. Wells was a powerhouse for women in the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints(you can read more about Emmeline here). She was a writer, an editor and later in life she became the General Relief Society President.
This excerpt came from an interview Emmeline did with Ethel C. Newman Lund. Ethel recorded this from the interview:
“She said that the day before she went to the temple… she had a compulsion to press her clothes the night before and see that everything was in order. She said while she always looked nice she wanted it to look special for some reason. She said when she got to the temple that next morning and was dressed, not in her robes but in her white dress,… “I saw the Savior.” She said, “I’m going to tell you where I saw him and when you go to the temple why always remember that that’s a sacred place. I’ll tell you right where it is.” And she did. They’ve restored that temple more than once, but they have never changed this place. And she told us specifically how you go, where you go in and where you go to find this place. She said, “When you go up that little ramp into the temple proper and you go turn into this first room, just before you turn to go in the first room the Savior came toward me.””
“She said he was dressed in a robe and he was in white. She said he was above the floor. She said he called her by name, “Emmeline, how beautiful you are in your beautiful dress.” Now she didn‘t elaborate too much. That’s all I can remember. But the point was that she said, “When you go to the temple”—this is when you go to do the work in the temple or to marry in the temple—“promise me that you will never, never go with soiled clothes or with clothes that are wrinkled because maybe one day you will see the Savior there.” It left such an impression on me that I even remember it the day I was married. When I went to the temple that morning I followed what she had told me where she saw him. I remember I couldn’t step there. I felt like it was holier ground that I should never stop on. In all the years I’ve been to the temple I’ve never stepped in that spot she told me the Savior was. That isn’t a figment of my imagination. She told that, but I don’t know that it wasn’t a figment of her imagination, but I believed her.
Places to Visit:
Salt Lake City Temple
Church History Building in Salt Lake City
Beehive House
Lion House
Salt Lake City Cemetery- Where Emmeline is buried
References:
”The Witness of Women, firsthand experiences and testimonies from the Restoration.” By Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder (p.21-22)