Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles from his book ‘To My Friends’ shared:
Most of us, most of the time, speak of the facility at Liberty as a “jail” or a “prison,” and certainly it was that. But Elder Brigham H. Roberts, in recording the history of the Church, spoke of the facility as a temple, or, more accurately, a “prison-temple.”9 Elder Neal A. Maxwell used the phrase in some of his writings.10 Certainly it lacked the purity, the beauty, the comfort and the cleanliness of our true temples, our dedicated temples. The speech and behavior of the guards and criminals who came there was anything but templelike. In fact, the restricting brutality and injustice of this experience at Liberty would make it seem the the very antithesis of the liberating, merciful spirit of our and ordinances that are performed in them. So, in what sense could Liberty Jail be called a “temple”—or at least a kind of temple—in the development of Joseph Smith personally and in his role as a prophet? And what does such a title tell us about God’s love and His teachings, including where and when that love and those teachings are made manifest?
As we think on these things, does it strike us that spiritual experience, revelatory experience, sacred experience can come to everyone of us in all the many and varied stages and circumstances of our lives if we want it, if we hold on and pray on, and if we keep our faith strong through our difficulties. We love and cherish our dedicated temples and the essential, exalting ordinances that are performed there. We thank heaven and the presiding Brethren that more and more of them are being built, giving more and more of us greater access to them. They are truly the holiest, most sacred structures in the Kingdom of God, to which we all ought to go as worthily and as often as possible.
But when you have to, you can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in any situation you are in. Indeed, let me put that a little more strongly: You can have sacred, revelatory, profoundly instructive experience with the Lord in the most miserable experiences of you life—in the worst settings, while enduring the most painful injustices, when facing the most insurmountable odds and opposition you have ever faced.
Now let’s talk about those propositions for a moment. Every one of us, in one way or another, great or small, dramatic or incidental, is going spend a little time in Liberty Jail—spiritually speaking.. . . continued ~Jeffrey R. Holland, To My Friends (Deseret Book, 2014, Dwarsligger® edition 2020, p.62-64)
