How do you fund the construction of a Mormon temple? By having Native Americans yank their gold fillings out of their mouths. Sound familiar?
The Mormon church has two versions of this story. The first can be found in the May 9, 1998 edition of Church News:
[Faust] emphasized the need to sacrifice for temple building and shared how members in Argentina found ways to donate during the construction of the São Paulo Brazil Temple. They gave the gold from their dental work to help pay for the temple. He said that he had purchased some of the gold fillings for more than the market price to share with congregations the nature of the sacrifice made by these members.
The sanitized version minimizes not only Faust's involvement but also lies about the amount of gold fillings Native Americans had ripped from their mouths. It can be found here:
One memorable donation was a gold dental bridge presented by an Argentine man to a pair of missionaries. They declined the gift at first, saying they couldn't take the man's teeth, but he responded, "You can't deny me the blessings I will receive by giving this to the Lord for his temple." Elder James E. Faust, who was serving as the South America area supervisor for the Church, heard the story and paid a generous sum of money for the gold. From that day on, he kept the dental bridge as a reminder of the Saints' countless sacrifices.
And we've come full circle. Here is the building built on a racist foundation derived from a lousy work of fiction written by a gold-digging con man and funded by the extracted gold fillings of the indigent brown heathens Mormons so loathe. Would Smith be proud or envious?
