50 Fun Facts About LDS Temples

Which communist country got an LDS temple in 1985, the only one ever behind the Iron Curtain?

East Germany surprised church leaders in 1978 by suggesting the temple itself, after years of travel limits that kept members from reaching one abroad. It stands in Freiberg.

Locals nicknamed the spired Washington D.C. Temple after a land in which classic film?

The Wizard of Oz stuck as a nickname, Oz, after schoolgirls promoting their 1974 production hung a message from the story on a bridge over the nearby Beltway.

How long did pioneers take to build the Salt Lake Temple, using stone quarried twenty miles away?

Forty years separated the first cornerstone in 1853 from the dedication, a date picked so the building would be finished four decades to the day after work began.

Early guidebooks compared the Laie Hawaii Temple, dedicated in 1919, to which famous monument?

The Taj Mahal comparison helped turn the spireless temple into a tourist stop on Oahu. It was the first LDS temple built outside the contiguous United States.

The baptismal font in the Salt Lake Temple rests on the backs of twelve of which sculpted animals?

Oxen carry the font because the great bronze basin of Solomon's Temple, described in 2 Chronicles, stood on twelve of them.

Which Book of Mormon prophet is depicted by the gold angel statue atop many LDS temples?

Moroni is the last writer in the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith said he returned as an angel to reveal where the golden plates lay hidden.

LDS temple baptisms are performed by proxy on behalf of which group of people?

The dead receive the rite by proxy, with a living member baptized in their place. Latter-day Saints believe each person may then accept or refuse it in the afterlife.

What do Latter-day Saints call the temple ordinance that marries a couple for eternity?

Sealing binds a couple beyond death rather than until it, and the same ordinance can join children to their parents. The couple kneel on opposite sides of an altar.

Which country received the first LDS temple built outside the United States, dedicated in 1923?

Canada got it because Latter-day Saint settlers had founded Cardston, Alberta in 1887. Their granite temple there has no spire at all.

The floral art glass in the Paris France Temple is based on the gardens of which painter?

Claude Monet's lilies, lilacs and hollyhocks bloom in the windows. The temple, near Versailles, was dedicated in 2017 with no spire and no angel statue.

What instrument does the gold angel statue atop the Salt Lake Temple hold to its lips?

A trumpet marks the figure as the angel of Revelation 14, whom Latter-day Saints believe heralds the gospel's return. The statue is hammered copper under gold leaf.

In which US state did Latter-day Saints dedicate their first temple, at Kirtland in 1836?

Ohio drew the early church in 1831 after Joseph Smith told members to gather there. The Kirtland Temple still stands and is a National Historic Landmark.

What pass, signed by a bishop and a stake president, admits a Latter-day Saint to a temple?

A recommend carries both leaders' signatures as a sign of the member's worthiness, and a standard one stays valid for two years.

What color is nearly all the ceremonial clothing that Latter-day Saints wear inside a temple?

White covers everything down to the shoes and neckties, with one exception: a green apron worn during the endowment ceremony.

The LDS temple endowment ceremony includes a reenactment of the story of which biblical couple?

Adam and Eve's creation and fall were once acted out live in every temple. Since the 1950s a film has gradually replaced the actors.

The Washington D.C. Temple actually stands beside the Capital Beltway in which neighboring state?

Maryland's suburb of Kensington is its home, and planners shifted the building 60 feet before construction so that it lined up exactly with the highway.

Which country received the first LDS temple built in Asia, dedicated in its capital in 1980?

Japan had received Latter-day Saint missionaries since 1901, and the Tokyo temple announced in 1975 was the church's 18th anywhere.

What natural hazard is the Salt Lake Temple renovation that began in 2019 designed to withstand?

Earthquakes of up to magnitude 7.3, the strongest expected in the Salt Lake Valley, are what the retrofit prepares the 1893 building to survive.

Which country received the first LDS temple in South America, dedicated in its largest city in 1978?

Brazil's São Paulo temple was also the first anywhere to use a single-story, single-spire design. The church had sent its first missionaries to the country in 1928.

Which city received the first LDS temple on the African continent, dedicated in August 1985?

Johannesburg's temple meant the church at last had one on every inhabited continent. A stone from the original Nauvoo Temple is set into its gate.

Which Utah city's historic tabernacle, gutted by a 2010 blaze, was rebuilt as an LDS temple?

Provo's temple, finished in 2016, reuses the tabernacle's surviving outer shell and some of its stained glass. It made Provo the second city with two LDS temples.

Which European capital's LDS temple dedication in 2019 drew all fifteen of the church's apostles?

Rome is thought to be the first place outside the United States where the entire First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve had ever gathered at once.

The Palmyra New York Temple has clear windows facing which site of Joseph Smith's First Vision?

The Sacred Grove is the stand of trees where Smith said he saw God the Father and Jesus. The temple's art glass pictures the same woods.

The Los Angeles California Temple sits on land bought from which silent-film comedian's company?

Harold Lloyd's film company sold the church the Westwood site in 1937. The temple dedicated there in 1956 was the largest the church had built up to then.

The first angel figure on an LDS temple, placed at Nauvoo in 1846, doubled as what rooftop device?

A weathervane, the metal Nauvoo angel flew flat with an open book in one hand. The first upright statue followed in 1892 in Salt Lake City.

Which city's LDS temple, the church's 100th, was dedicated without a steeple because of a lawsuit?

Boston's temple stands in suburban Belmont, where neighbors sued over its height. The steeple and its angel went up in 2001, a year after the dedication.

The Mesa Arizona Temple was the first to offer ordinances in which language other than English?

Spanish sessions began at Mesa in 1945. The temple's grounds also host an Easter pageant each spring that draws close to 100,000 people.

Where do Latter-day Saints hold regular Sunday worship, since temples are reserved for ordinances?

Meetinghouses host weekly worship along with recreational and social gatherings, while a temple is kept for ceremonies such as eternal marriages.

What do Latter-day Saints wave in the air during the Hosanna Shout at a temple dedication?

Handkerchiefs are waved in rhythm as the congregation calls out hosanna three times, a rite first performed at the Kirtland Temple in 1836.

Which phrase from the Book of Exodus is inscribed on the outside of LDS temples?

Holiness to the Lord comes from Exodus 28, where the words are engraved on a gold plate worn on the high priest's forehead.

What threat led pioneers to bury the Salt Lake Temple's foundation under a fake plowed field?

An approaching US army prompted the cover-up during the Utah War. When the foundation was uncovered, much of its sandstone had cracked and was replaced.

Which LDS president introduced a smaller, standardized temple plan in 1997 for remote members?

Gordon B. Hinckley sketched the compact floor plan himself, and most of the 77 temples dedicated during his presidency used the smaller design.

What did St. George Utah Temple builders hoist and drop as a pile driver to firm up the swampy site?

A cannon was lifted thirty feet and dropped to pound lava rock into the bog. Completed in 1877, this is the oldest LDS temple still in use.

What gutted the original Nauvoo Temple in 1848, two years after Latter-day Saints left the city?

An arson fire set by an unknown hand left only the four outer walls, and a tornado toppled one of those in 1850. A replica was dedicated on the site in 2002.

Which room, kept for the church president, is found only in the Salt Lake Temple?

The Holy of Holies, named for the Jerusalem Temple's inner sanctuary, is a circular, domed room lit by a Tiffany stained-glass window of Joseph Smith's First Vision.

In which Missouri city did Joseph Smith dedicate the movement's first temple site in 1831?

Independence was meant to be the center of Zion, but the Saints were driven from the county in 1833 before they could build. A small separate denomination owns the lot today.

Which church, once called the RLDS Church, sold the Kirtland Temple to the LDS Church in 2024?

Community of Christ had owned and cared for the building for more than a century. The sale was part of a $192.5 million purchase of historic sites and objects.

Which LDS president set the Salt Lake Temple's capstone by electric switch, then dedicated it?

Wilford Woodruff, the church's fourth president, pressed the switch himself and challenged workers to finish the interior within a year. They did.

Which country got Europe's first LDS temple in 1955, the first to present the endowment on film?

Switzerland's temple near Bern served members who spoke many languages, so the ceremony was filmed and dubbed instead of being acted out live.

The Manhattan New York Temple shares a building across the street from which landmark?

Lincoln Center faces a building that already held a Latter-day Saint chapel, and the temple's walls were soundproofed against the traffic outside.

Which Asian city's LDS temple opened in 1996 on the upper floors of a six-story building shared with a chapel?

Hong Kong's temple rose on the site of the old mission home, and the building at first also held mission offices and living quarters for the temple president.

What did builders mix into the Kirtland Temple's exterior stucco to make its walls glisten?

Crushed glassware and pottery, donated by church members, went into the mix that coats the building's sandstone walls.

What destroyed the St. George Utah Temple's first tower, which Brigham Young had thought too short?

A lightning strike razed the tower soon after Young died, and the replacement was built far taller, just as he had wanted.

Which brother-in-law of Brigham Young designed the Salt Lake Temple but died before it was finished?

Truman O. Angell trained as a carpenter and had helped build the Kirtland Temple. He died in 1887, six years before the dedication.

Which carved emblems from the original Nauvoo Temple survive, one of them at the Smithsonian?

Sunstones sat between moonstones below and starstones above, an order one temple builder tied to the woman of Revelation 12, clothed with the sun. Three originals survive.

Which Utah-born sculptor and Olympic archery medalist made the gold angel atop the Salt Lake Temple?

Cyrus Dallin, a Unitarian, at first turned the commission down. He later said the angel had brought him nearer to God than anything else he made.

Which painter, the first woman to create an LDS temple mural, filled the Manti temple's World Room?

Minerva Teichert painted the room in 1947, covering nearly 4,000 square feet. A 2021 plan to remove her murals was dropped after a public outcry.

What title is given to the wife of an LDS temple president, who serves alongside him?

Matron is the title, and she directs the women who work in the temple. A couple is usually called together and serves for about three years.

Which California city's hilltop LDS temple has five spires and sweeping views of San Francisco Bay?

Oakland's temple borrows from Asian architecture, and its lit spires are bright enough that some neighbors have complained of light pollution.

Which Nordic country's LDS temple was converted from a 1931 chapel once used as an air-raid shelter?

Denmark's temple in Copenhagen keeps the chapel's original redbrick front. The building had also housed the first Latter-day Saint stake in Scandinavia.