Angel Moroni - LDS Temple - Nauvoo, IL - Statues of Religious Figures on Waymarking.com

"The Angel Moroni ( /m?'ro?na?/) is an angel that Joseph Smith, Jr. said visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 21, 1823. According to Smith, the angel was the guardian of the golden plates, which Latter Day Saints believe were the source material for the Book of Mormon, buried in a hill near Smith's home in western New York. Moroni is an important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, and is featured prominently in Mormon architecture and art. Three Witnesses besides Joseph Smith also reported that they saw Moroni in visions in 1829, as did several other witnesses who each said they had their own vision.

Moroni is thought by Latter Day Saints to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates. The book says that Moroni buried them before he died after a great battle between two pre-Columbian civilizations. After he died, he became an angel, and was tasked with guarding the golden plates, and with eventually directing Joseph Smith to their location in the 1820s. According to Smith, he returned the golden plates to Moroni after they were translated and as of 1838 the angel Moroni still had the plates in his possession." SOURCE

"The Nauvoo Illinois Temple stands on a high bluff overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River. The majestic building is a faithful reproduction of the original Nauvoo Temple built by Mormon settlers in the 1840s and destroyed by arson fire in 1848 and tornado-force winds in 1850." SOURCE "The Nauvoo Temple was the second temple constructed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. The church's first temple was completed in Kirtland, Ohio, United States, in 1836. When the main body of the church was forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois, in the winter of 1846, the church attempted to sell the building, finally succeeding in 1848.

In 1937, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reacquired the lot on which the original temple had stood. The Church built a temple on the original site whose exterior is a replica of the first temple, but whose interior is laid out like a modern Latter-day Saint temple. On 27 June 2002, a date that coincided with the 158th anniversary of the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the temple was dedicated as the Nauvoo Illinois Temple." SOURCE