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When Lyn Burningham traveled from Utah to attend the Tallahassee Temple Open House on Nov. 4, she said it was “just like coming home.”
Originally from Ft. Lauderdale, Burningham began attending FSU in 1963. A friend from Ft. Lauderdale also studying at FSU asked her to play the piano for his church services. While Burningham had grown up Episcopalian, her friend, Jay Ray, was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“There were not many members of the Church then at FSU,” Burningham noted. The congregation did not even have a meetinghouse of its own but met in a community center.
Burningham loved music, enjoyed playing, and Ray was a long-time friend. So … “I told him I would give it a try the next Sunday, but someone would need to give me a ride since I didn’t have a car.”
She became involved in the activities of Ray’s Church, making more friends among the Latter-day Saints. Then she began typing doctoral dissertations for graduate students who were also Church members.
“I became the ‘unofficial Church secretary,’” Burningham said. She recalled typing letters to people she would later know as prophets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Burningham was baptized in September, 1964. She was one of many members who pitched in to help when time came to build a meetinghouse for Tallahassee Latter-day Saints. She applied wood stain and hammered nails in that building, which still stands on Stadium Drive in Tallahassee.
She was thrilled to visit the site when she came to town. “It was momentous to go back to see the chapel and the organ used at that time. I ran my hand along the pulpit I had helped stain. I went into the chapel and turned on the organ and played hymns. It was such a unique experience of reliving time from 60 years ago … a special moment feeling a special Presence.”
Returning to Tallahassee, Burningham—who will be 80 years old in May—brought two of her three daughters, her husband, and one son-in-law to see the Stadium Drive building and the new temple on Thomasville Road which she recalls “used to be a country road.”
Touring the temple, she described experiencing strong emotions. “It was a phenomenal feeling that the Lord was with me. My brother, who is not a member, said he had no idea how peaceful it would be. It was a special time and a sacred place.”
Noting that much has changed in the Tallahassee area in 60 years, Burningham said living here was a source of wonderful change in her own life.
The night of her baptism in 1964, she said her parents called to approve her decision, telling her she was “fortunate to have found at an early age what so many look for throughout their life—a sense of peace and happiness in the Lord …”
“And for me,” she concluded, “I feel that I have received so many precious gifts in my life because my friend asked me 60 years ago to share my musical talent with his friends in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
