- The first batch of reservations released Tuesday for April tours were claimed within hours, but more will be released in batches.
- President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said the temple creates eternal families, answering the question “Will I be alone?”
- Workers strengthened the pioneer-era foundation to hold a temple that weighs as much as 15,000 African elephants.
- Tours during the six-month open house in 2027 will last 60 to 80 minutes.
The first of an expected 5 million people rushed to TempleSquare.org Tuesday to reserve their places on an unprecedented tour of the inside of the Salt Lake Temple next year.
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The general public hasn’t been invited inside one of America’s most-visited landmarks since 1893, a fact that will provide intense motivation given the temple’s status as “a unique and iconic symbol of the church worldwide,” according to President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After all, the artistry of the massive Gothic revival-style temple that took 40 years to build and the past seven years to renovate matches the greatest buildings anywhere in the world, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said at a kickoff event Tuesday.
That’s why all the reservations released Tuesday for next April were gone within hours. (Don’t worry, the tours will run from April 5 to Oct. 1 and more tickets for April and the other months will be released in future batches.)
But those still wondering why they should reserve a tour or why the church spent those years renovating the pioneer-era temple are asking exactly the right questions, said President Uchtdorf.
In fact, he hopes visitors will be deeply and personally curious during their 60-to-80-minute tours.
Why the temple and why a tour
“People may say, why are these people putting such an effort into this ‘House of the Lord,’ to keep it, to hold onto it?” President Uchtdorf said.
He hopes that answers may vary, based on the Latter-day Saint belief that the Spirit teaches each person individually.
“It is not just the building, as beautiful as it is,” President Uchtdorf said. “It is the content which is being taught (there) by the spirit by our Heavenly Father, by his Son, and what it means to each one of us when we go there.
“So I hope that people come and learn different things here.”
But the chief answer for Latter-day Saints, he and others said Tuesday, drives directly at the core of Latter-day Saint belief and worship.
“Jesus Christ is the foundation of our lives,” President Uchtdorf said. “He is the reason we know why we are here, what the purpose of life is, where we are coming from and where we are proceeding from now on.”
That, he said, is why church leaders chose “Rejoice in Christ” as the theme of the open house tours and the larger Salt Lake Temple Celebration.
The church unveiled the theme’s logo, handed out stickers and put up new signage around Salt Lake City for Tuesday’s event, which was livestreamed from the new west addition of the temple.
“We invite everyone to come and see,” the church’s Primary General President Rosemary K. Chibota said. “We invite everyone to come and learn, and then we invite everyone to come and feel God’s love for you and also feel the peace that is found in the temple.”
Will I be alone after this life?
Latter-day Saints believe temples are literal houses of the Lord, places where Jesus Christ can visit. In fact, within the first week after the completion of the church’s first temple in Kirtland, Ohio, Joseph Smith and one of his counselors reported that Christ visited them and accepted the temple, church historian Matt Grow said.
President Uchtdorf said that every person anywhere in the world eventually confronts the questions of the purpose of life, including what will come afterward. One of those questions, he said, is “Will I be alone?”
Latter-day Saints believe that the binding or sealing power that Christ bestowed on Peter as recorded in the Bible is available to create eternal families in temple ordinances.
“The House of the Lord gives a step forward,” President Uchtdorf said, “because it shows you that ordinances given to us at this time through the Savior himself, through his designated servants, will help us not only live a happier life here, but also know what we can expect on the other side, which will be a joyful reunion with our families.”
Trading anxiety and perfectionism for peace
President Uchtdorf also said the temple provides answers for anxiety and perfectionism.
“The Savior speaks about his peace, and his peace is a matter of comfort of the heart,” he said. “It helps you to overcome the feeling, ‘I will never make it. I’m not good enough. I’m not perfect. How can I ever achieve the perfection, my friend, my neighbor, my bishop, my whoever, is showing?’
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“In the temple, we learn everyone has a chance. We just need to go through the door. We need to be open to those principles of faith, repentance with all the heart we have and then, the door opens.”
He said the temple is beautiful. When people enter the temple to worship, Jesus Christ opens the door to the eternities.
“I think the temple is a gift for the whole world because those who go there can really be peacemakers, because they have the inner peace and they have the desire to be loving and caring and forgiving to others, because only through that we receive our own forgiveness and peace.”
Deep meaning for Utah and history
Cox said his great-great-grandfather was the first Caucasian male child born in the Salt Lake Valley to live to adulthood, the son of the earliest Mormon pioneers.
The Salt Lake Temple “is a building of faith for so many who practice this faith,” he said. “And it is also a building of interest, a historic building in the history of western migration, in the history of faith communities in the United States.”
He noted that Temple Square is one of the top tourist attractions in Utah and the country. In fact, it draws upward of 1 million annual visitors even though, as Cox said, “It’s a place where people come every year and never get a chance to enter that building, and yet they come anyway to see it.”
That’s because temples are closed to the general public, reserved for faithful Latter-day Saints who show they are trying their best to follow Jesus Christ.
“Finally,” Cox said, “(all visitors) get to go inside and see what this is all about and see what has happened in this place.”
“We are so grateful,” he said, “to the Church of Jesus Christ for their efforts in preserving this building. … Thank you for giving a world this opportunity. We look forward to sharing with you.”
Colorful metaphors for life
President Uchtdorf used colorful examples to describe the church’s focus on the temple’s foundation during the renovation. Workers uncovered the old pioneer foundation, strengthened it with metal and new stone and added 98 base isolators so the temple can move as one piece several feet in every direction in an earthquake.
He marveled at the engineering feat, since the temple weighs about 187 million pounds.
“It does not seem possible that these base isolators hold up all this weight,” said President Uchtdorf, who grew up in Europe and is a former airline pilot. “It is huge. To give you a comparison, it is about 10 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower. For someone who likes aviation, it’s about the same as 250 747s, fully loaded. For someone who likes people — a million people. For someone who likes elephants, about 15,000 African elephants.”
He noted that workers added steel rods through the foundation and up through the temple’s walls. All the reinforcements bound the walls and foundation together with post-tension cabling.
“If ever an earthquake comes, then it will move from right to left and forward and backward, but it will not break,” President Uchtdorf said. “We can be pulled together as we rejoice in Christ in this life.”
He said the pioneers built the temple intending it to last a millennium, but engineers and architects have new information today.
“We have responsibilities to protect the House of the Lord, with all the knowledge and the means we have, but even more, we have to protect our own foundation,” he said.
Virtually all of the church’s downtown properties, including the famed Tabernacle, the Conference Center, libraries and museums and the new Visitors’ Center will be used to invite and inform visitors during the Salt Lake Temple Celebration.
All of those activities will be free and only the tour will require a reservation. Visitors can come to Temple Square at any time.
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