Draper » Tom Holdman was enjoying a quiet Father's Day with his family this June when he got the call from the alarm company. The warehouse where he had stored the stained-glass windows for the Draper LDS Temple was on fire. Moments later, he reached the scene just as firefighters arrived and watched in horror as his work of the previous 18 months was nearly destroyed.

Holdman asked the firefighters if he could rescue his precious artwork before the roof collapsed. They agreed, and together plunged into the flames to drag the windows to safety. Bottles of alcohol, acetone and chemicals sat nearby, but none ignited.

Only one window was damaged, Holdman says now, standing in his Holdman Studio here. "It was a miracle."

That's how the 38-year-old artisan also describes much of his life.

Struggling with a stutter since childhood, Holdman sought another way to express himself. After completing his two-year mission to Dallas for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1991, he was not accepted at Brigham Young University. Undaunted, he taught himself to draw and launched an art-glass window business out of his parents' Orem home. Nearly 18 years later, he has a thriving studio that has created windows for 14 of the church's most recent temples.

Now Holdman's windows have been installed in the Draper Temple, the church's 129th and 12th in Utah, which will open to the public next week. It will serve approximately 60,000 Latter-day Saints in the southeastern end of the Salt Lake Valley, but more than 950,000 people already have made reservations to see it.

"The inside of the temple was just gorgeous. Everything from the front reception desk to the celestial room," wrote Mormon bloggers Amber and Tyler Gerritsen, who got a sneak peek at the temple this week. "Especially loved were the telestial rooms with their neat murals on the walls. We hope everyone has a chance to see this beautiful edifice."

Mormon temples are meant to reflect God's closeness. Instead of cavernous sanctuaries typical of Catholic cathedrals, LDS temple interiors have smallish, carpeted rooms where marriages are performed, families are "sealed" for the eternities and participants commit themselves to God and godliness. Moving through three such rooms, known as telestial, terrestrial, and celestial, Mormons hear the story of human history from the Garden of Eden through mortality to the afterlife, ritually re-enacted by volunteers or on film.

"No member of the church has received the ultimate which this church has to give until he or she has received his or her temple blessings," the late LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley said in 1997. "Accordingly, we are doing all that we know to do to expedite the construction of these sacred buildings and make the blessings received therein more generally available."

Hinckley embarked on the most ambitious temple-building program in LDS Church history. During his 13-year presidency, the number of temples increased from 47 to 127. Though the church typically uses the most expensive African wood and French fabrics, it doesn't go into debt to do so.

"This will become the house of the Lord so it needs to be the nicest we know how to do," Apostle M. Russell Ballard said Friday during a private tour. "There are no mortgages on any of our buildings and we don't worship in one until it's paid for."

Holdman's windows have been showcased in 14 of the recent temples; he's currently working on designs for the Hawaii and Argentina projects.

"The First Presidency and apostles want to maximize the light," Ballard said.

Holdman's first temple commission was in 1999, when he won the bid with an image of what Mormons call "the Sacred Grove," a wooded area near LDS founder Joseph Smith's home where Smith claimed to have a vision of God and Jesus. The tree design was repeated in a stained-glass mural and in waiting-area windows, which overlook the grove itself. Since then, Holdman has designed windows with biblical scenes, Book of Mormon scenes and geometric designs.

The Draper temple decor prominently features the state flower, the sego lily, because many Mormon pioneers survived by eating the plant's root, Ballard said. It is clearly visible in the windows, which add to the temple's overall sense of lightness.

Holdman is quick to note that his project's are a team effort between his artists and LDS architects. He finds the work personally and spiritually satisfying.

"I need to do artwork more than I need air to breathe, especially in glass" he says. "After spending hours and hours creating a piece, you hold it up to the light and see how it alters the colors and shapes. As the sun changes in the sky, the art will change into hundreds of unique pieces. It brings me such joy."

Holdman has done windows for Presbyterians, Catholics, private homes and public libraries, but his favorites are the temples.

"I love to share my talents with my faith," he says. "It is a very humbling experience."

Peggy Fletcher Stack writes about religion and spirituality. Contact her at pstack@sltrib.com.