LDS Temples
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50 free LDS Temples trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
For Latter-day Saints, a temple is different from the chapel where they worship each week. It is the most revered building in the faith, set apart for ceremonies that members hold dear, and each one has a story: pioneers hauling stone by wagon, governments giving unexpected permission, designs borrowed from the landscape around them. This quiz covers the early temples of Kirtland and Nauvoo, the long building of the Salt Lake Temple, and the spread of temples across six continents. There are questions on symbols and statues, on what happens inside, on architects, artists and church presidents, and on the odd facts that tour guides love. It is written for members, returned missionaries, seminary classes and family nights, and for anyone curious about buildings they have only seen from the outside. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which communist country got an LDS temple in 1985, the only one ever behind the Iron Curtain?
East Germany
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.
Q 02Locals nicknamed the spired Washington D.C. Temple after a land in which classic film?
The Wizard of Oz
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.
Q 03How long did pioneers take to build the Salt Lake Temple, using stone quarried twenty miles away?
Forty years
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.
Q 04Early guidebooks compared the Laie Hawaii Temple, dedicated in 1919, to which famous monument?
The Taj Mahal
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.
Q 05The baptismal font in the Salt Lake Temple rests on the backs of twelve of which sculpted animals?
Oxen
Oxen carry the font because the great bronze basin of Solomon's Temple, described in 2 Chronicles, stood on twelve of them.
Q 06Which Book of Mormon prophet is depicted by the gold angel statue atop many LDS temples?
Moroni
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.
Q 07LDS temple baptisms are performed by proxy on behalf of which group of people?
The dead
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.
Q 08What do Latter-day Saints call the temple ordinance that marries a couple for eternity?
Sealing
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.
Q 09Which country received the first LDS temple built outside the United States, dedicated in 1923?
Canada
Canada got it because Latter-day Saint settlers had founded Cardston, Alberta in 1887. Their granite temple there has no spire at all.
Q 10The floral art glass in the Paris France Temple is based on the gardens of which painter?
Claude Monet
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.
Q 11What instrument does the gold angel statue atop the Salt Lake Temple hold to its lips?
A trumpet
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.
Q 12In which US state did Latter-day Saints dedicate their first temple, at Kirtland in 1836?
Ohio
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.
Q 13What pass, signed by a bishop and a stake president, admits a Latter-day Saint to a temple?
A recommend
A recommend carries both leaders' signatures as a sign of the member's worthiness, and a standard one stays valid for two years.
Q 21Which Utah city's historic tabernacle, gutted by a 2010 blaze, was rebuilt as an LDS temple?
Provo
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.
Q 22Which European capital's LDS temple dedication in 2019 drew all fifteen of the church's apostles?
Rome
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.
Q 23The Palmyra New York Temple has clear windows facing which site of Joseph Smith's First Vision?
The Sacred Grove
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.
Q 14What color is nearly all the ceremonial clothing that Latter-day Saints wear inside a temple?
White
White covers everything down to the shoes and neckties, with one exception: a green apron worn during the endowment ceremony.
Q 15The LDS temple endowment ceremony includes a reenactment of the story of which biblical couple?
Adam and Eve
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.
Q 16The Washington D.C. Temple actually stands beside the Capital Beltway in which neighboring state?
Maryland
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.
Q 17Which country received the first LDS temple built in Asia, dedicated in its capital in 1980?
Japan
Japan had received Latter-day Saint missionaries since 1901, and the Tokyo temple announced in 1975 was the church's 18th anywhere.
Q 18What natural hazard is the Salt Lake Temple renovation that began in 2019 designed to withstand?
Earthquakes
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.
Q 19Which country received the first LDS temple in South America, dedicated in its largest city in 1978?
Brazil
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.
Q 20Which city received the first LDS temple on the African continent, dedicated in August 1985?
Johannesburg
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.
Q 24The Los Angeles California Temple sits on land bought from which silent-film comedian's company?
Harold Lloyd
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.
Q 25The first angel figure on an LDS temple, placed at Nauvoo in 1846, doubled as what rooftop device?
A weathervane
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.
Q 26Which city's LDS temple, the church's 100th, was dedicated without a steeple because of a lawsuit?
Boston
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.
Q 27The Mesa Arizona Temple was the first to offer ordinances in which language other than English?
Spanish
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.
Q 28Where do Latter-day Saints hold regular Sunday worship, since temples are reserved for ordinances?
Meetinghouses
Meetinghouses host weekly worship along with recreational and social gatherings, while a temple is kept for ceremonies such as eternal marriages.
Q 29What do Latter-day Saints wave in the air during the Hosanna Shout at a temple dedication?
Handkerchiefs
Handkerchiefs are waved in rhythm as the congregation calls out hosanna three times, a rite first performed at the Kirtland Temple in 1836.
Q 30Which phrase from the Book of Exodus is inscribed on the outside of LDS temples?
Holiness to the Lord
Holiness to the Lord comes from Exodus 28, where the words are engraved on a gold plate worn on the high priest's forehead.