Both Elder Neil L. Andersen and Mitt Romney served missions to France and traveled to celebrated the newly completed Paris France Temple.
The invited guests walked under words filled with spiritual meaning for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Sainteté au Seigneur, La Maison Du Seigneur” — “Holiness to the Lord, The House of the Lord.”
They are inscribed over the entrance to the Paris France Temple, newly completed just outside of Paris here in Le Chesnay, a small city that borders Versailles on a site along Boulevard Saint-Antoine, within walking distance of the beautiful gardens of the Château de Versailles.
It is here that the mayor of Le Chesnay, Philippe Brillault, stood Thursday before a crowd of 100 government, church and business leaders to welcome the Mormons and their temple to France — a greeting nearly 19 years after LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley told LDS faithful in France, "The time has come when you deserve to have a temple among you, and we'll look for a place to build one."
The temple, now complete, will soon begin its monthlong public open house, starting with Thursday's meeting of dignitaries featuring the warm remarks by the mayor: "We are happy to welcome you," he said in French. "We will respect you as you respect us, and we will live in harmony."