70 free Latter-day Saints trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free Latter-day Saints trivia questions with answers. This quiz covers the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the faith most people still call Mormon: Joseph Smith and the golden plates, Kirtland and Nauvoo, the killing at Carthage, Brigham Young and the 1847 trek, the handcart companies, the 1890 Manifesto and Utah statehood. It moves on to how the church works today: temples and open houses, tithing, the Word of Wisdom, missionaries and their name tags, the Quorum of the Twelve, the 2018 request to drop the nickname. There is a culture round too: the Tabernacle Choir, BYU and Cosmo the Cougar, FamilySearch's mountain vault, Mitt Romney's mission and the Broadway musical. It is written for anyone curious about the faith, for members testing their own knowledge, and for youth or family-night games. Difficulty runs from very easy to questions on Little Cottonwood Canyon and the Genealogical Society of Utah. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On what date did Joseph Smith formally organise the church in western New York?
April 6, 1830
It was first called the Church of Christ; the name Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came later.
Q 02Joseph Smith was born on 23 December 1805 in which state?
Vermont
His family moved to Palmyra, New York, where he said he had his First Vision in 1820.
Q 03Joseph Smith said that in 1823 an angel directed him to a buried book made of what?
Golden plates
He said he translated them into the Book of Mormon; the angel was Moroni, the last prophet of that book.
Q 04Which angel, now a trumpet-blowing statue atop many temples, did Joseph Smith say guarded the buried record?
Moroni
Cyrus Dallin's statue went up on the Salt Lake Temple in April 1892; a 2020 earthquake knocked the trumpet from its hand.
Q 05Whom did Joseph Smith elope with and marry in January 1827?
Emma Hale
He had met her while boarding in Pennsylvania; she later stayed in Nauvoo rather than follow Brigham Young west.
Q 06In 1831 the young church moved its headquarters to which Ohio town, site of the first temple?
Kirtland
The Kirtland era ended in 1838 after the collapse of the church-run Kirtland Safety Society bank.
Q 07The first Latter Day Saint temple, in Ohio, was dedicated in which year?
1836
Owned for over a century by the Community of Christ, it was bought by the LDS Church in 2024 in a $192.5 million deal.
Q 08What Hebrew-derived name did Joseph Smith give the Illinois town of Commerce?
Nauvoo
By 1844 its population had swelled to about 12,000, rivalling Chicago at the time.
Q 09By 1844 the Saints' city on the Mississippi had about 12,000 people, rivalling which other Illinois city?
Chicago
Violence from neighbours forced most of the Saints out within two years.
Q 10Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed by a mob on 27 June 1844 in the jail of which Illinois town?
Carthage
Smith fell from the window crying 'Oh Lord my God!' and was shot again where he lay.
Q 11Joseph Smith, who ran for the White House in 1844, holds what grim distinction in US political history?
First candidate for president to be assassinated
His 1844 platform proposed gradually ending slavery, annexing Texas and California, and reforming prisons.
Q 12Who took over leadership of most of the church after Joseph Smith's death and led its members west?
Brigham Young
He was appointed the first governor of Utah Territory in 1851 and directed the founding of some 350 towns.
Q 13What did the church's leader reportedly say on seeing the Salt Lake Valley on 24 July 1847?
Q 21The Salt Lake Temple's walls are built from stone quarried where?
Little Cottonwood Canyon
It is quartz monzonite that looks like granite; the same canyon houses the church's records vault.
Q 22How many spires does the Salt Lake Temple have?
Six
They are said to represent the power of the priesthood; the building is the largest LDS temple by floor area.
Q 23Latter-day Saint temples are closed to the public after dedication; what do they hold beforehand?
An open house
Temples are not used for weekly Sunday worship, which happens in ordinary meetinghouses.
This is the right place, drive on
Utah still marks the date as Pioneer Day.
Q 14Winter Quarters, the Latter-day Saints' 1846-47 encampment before Utah, was in what is now which state?
Nebraska
About 70,000 pioneers made the journey before the railroad arrived in 1869.
Q 15Between 1856 and 1860, nearly 3,000 poor European converts crossed the plains pulling what?
Handcarts
The Willie and Martin companies left too late in 1856 and more than 210 of their 980 members died in Wyoming snow.
Q 16The Willie and Martin handcart companies were caught by early winter in 1856 in which territory?
Wyoming
More than 210 of the 980 pioneers died despite a dramatic rescue effort.
Q 17Roughly how many settlers arrived in Utah between 1847 and the coming of the railroad in 1869?
80,000
Those who came by train afterwards are not usually counted as pioneers.
Q 18Which church president issued the September 1890 declaration suspending new plural marriages?
Wilford Woodruff
Congress had disincorporated the church and seized its assets; Utah statehood followed in 1896.
Q 19Which 1857 atrocity saw Utah territorial militiamen kill 120 or more members of an Arkansas wagon train?
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Only John D. Lee was ever tried; he was executed by firing squad in 1877.
Q 20The Salt Lake Temple took how many years to build?
40
Wilford Woodruff dedicated it on 6 April 1893, exactly forty years after the cornerstone was laid.
Q 24Which temple ordinance is performed by living members as proxies for people who have died?
Baptism for the dead
It drives the church's enormous interest in genealogy.
Q 25What percentage of their income are Latter-day Saints asked to give as tithing?
Ten percent
Paying a full tithe is one of the requirements for a temple recommend.
Q 26The church's health code, dictated by Joseph Smith as a revelation in 1833, is known as what?
The Word of Wisdom
Joseph Smith dictated it as a revelation on 27 February 1833.
Q 27The church's health code bans 'hot drinks', which has been interpreted as forbidding which two beverages?
Coffee and tea
Hot chocolate is fine, and caffeinated soda has never been officially forbidden.
Q 28How long do young male Latter-day Saint missionaries typically serve?
Two years
Young women serve 18 months, and everyone pays their own way.
Q 29The name tags worn by LDS missionaries give their surname with which title for men?
Elder
Women are 'Sister'; the largest Missionary Training Center is in Provo next to BYU.
Q 30Roughly how many volunteer missionaries did the church report in the field as of 2024?
More than 100,000
As of 2024 the membership figure it reported was more than 17.5 million.