Temple Site Possibilities: Utah Salt Lake City Area--Part One: Area and Temple Overview and Details About the Salt Lake Temple

Hello again, everyone! I am back tonight yet again with my post focusing on the Utah Salt Lake City Area of the Church. This area takes in those cities with the Greater Salt Lake geographical area, in addition to a very small part of Nevada. There are also 4 temples of the Church within that area to serve the Saints who reside in the region. They are as follows: the Draper Jordan River, Oquirrh Mountain and Salt Lake Temples. And the number of stakes served within each district may warrant a couple of new temples, though I only have one such location on my list for now.

The oldest of these is, of course, the Salt Lake Temple, which became the Church's 4th in operation at the time of its dedication, which was held during an 18-day period spanning April 6-24, 1893, more than 40 years after its groundbreaking, which is the longest such period in Church history.

When Brigham Young announced this temple (just 4 days after the Saints entered the Salt Lake Valley, and during the groundbreaking ceremony for the temple, President Young indicated his intention to build an edifice that would stand through the 1,000 years of Christ's millennial reign on earth.

For that reason, though there have been minor adjustments to its exterior and interior look when that has been needed, there will be no need to ever close it long-term for a complete renovation process and rededication.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a popular Mormon myth was that the temple would be closed for several years for a complete overhaul. The Church put that rumor to rest with an official statement on that matter, and that statement has been reiterated at times since when the rumor has resurfaced. Unless and until it is officially announced, we can safely reject any such rumors in our time when we hear them.

Additionally, as I am sure most of you are aware, since Salt Lake City is the global headquarters of the Church, the Salt Lake Temple has special rooms on its top floors reserved for the weekly meetings of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as monthly meetings for all General Authorities that are assigned to Church headquarters.

I could go on about what an icon that temple is in Church history, but I will exercise restraint, and merely note that the Salt Lake temple is one of only two or three in the Church where temple workers perform the narration for endowment sessions live rather than running a video.

In the meantime, let me move on to talk about the temple district. The Salt Lake Temple currently serves those 59 stakes and 1 district located in the Salt Lake Valley and 2 other stakes in Nevada (based in the city of Elko). I wanted to pause here to note that I have added a potential temple for Elko to my list, which I covered in an earlier post.

If and when a temple is built in Elko, it may take away a few stakes from this district. But another popular option which I have heard floated around is the city of Tooele, which is the one potential candidate on my list for this area. I guess I should techincally put Elko in this area, since the Elko Stakes fall within this district. Let me know your thoughts on that in the comments below.

Because I spent so much time talking in this post about the Salt Lake Temple, I don't want it to become overly long, so I will follow this post up with a second post about the history of the other three temples in this area and any prospects I see for future temples there.

So that does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.