Layton Utah Temple Is Ready for Public Tours

The public open house for the Layton Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints begins this week in Layton, Utah, on Friday, April 19, and extends through Saturday, June 1, 2024, excluding Sundays.

Media attended a news conference and toured the new house of the Lord on Monday, April 15, 2024. Those participating in the event included Elder Christophe G. Giraud-Carrier, assistant, Utah Area Presidency; Elder Kevin R. Duncan, executive director, Temple Department; and Sister Amy A. Wright, First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency.

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“In the temple, we learn about our divine identity and destiny better than any other place,” Elder Giraud-Carrier said. “In the temple, we make promises to our Father in heaven, about how we will act and how we will treat one another. And most importantly, in the temple the things that start in this life can go beyond the grave as husbands and wives, parents and children are united together not only till death do us part, but for time and for all eternity. The temple, as the spires of this temple show, point us to our Heavenly Father and to the Savior Jesus Christ and help us remember Them and keep Them at the center of our lives.”

Sister Wright, who raised her children in Layton, said Jesus Christ wants everyone to visit His holy house.

“With our Savior Jesus Christ it’s always an invitation: ‘come and see,’ ‘come unto me,’ ‘come, follow me.’ Or sometimes He simply just said, ‘Come,’” she said. “But it is our individual responsibility whether we choose to accept and act upon this invitation. My dear friends here today, every one of us has been invited to come and see. … It is our hope that you will also come and feel and come and know of the love that God has for each and every one of you and the love that our Savior Jesus Christ has for each and every one of you.”

Elder Duncan called the Layton Temple a “house of hope” and “a place of peace.” He said the Church builds these temples so more people can access to the wonderful things that occur inside the temple.

“My friends, I hope that as you’re inside this temple, you’ll really feel that it is a place of refuge from the storms of life for all of us,” Elder Duncan said. 

The open house for the Layton Utah Temple will be one of two temple open houses underway in northern Utah. The open house for the Taylorsville Utah Temple runs through Saturday, May 18.

There is no cost to attend the Layton Utah Temple public open house. Reservations to walk through the house of the Lord can be made online.

“We want to bring temples closer to the expanding membership of the Church,” said President Russell M. Nelson as he announced the Layton Temple in the October 2018 general conference. The Church of Jesus Christ now has 350 houses of the Lord in operation, under construction or renovation, or announced worldwide.

The Layton Utah Temple will be dedicated by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in two sessions (10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. MDT) on Sunday, June 16, 2024. The dedicatory sessions will be broadcast to all congregations in the Layton Utah Temple district.

A small group of Latter-day Saints gathered at the site of the Layton temple for a groundbreaking ceremony on May 23, 2020, amid local COVID-19 restrictions.

About the Layton Utah Temple

The Layton Utah Temple is a three-story, nearly 94,000-square-foot structure. It sits on a slope between the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains and the valley floor at 1400 Oak Hills Drive. The sacred structure is the second house of the Lord in Davis County. The nearby Bountiful Utah Temple was dedicated in January 1995.

Inspired by traditional Latter-day Saint and other religious architecture, the Layton Temple includes design motifs that were influenced by the agricultural heritage of the Layton City area. The structure’s exterior consists of precast concrete panels over a structural steel frame and cast-in-place concrete shear walls. Interior and exterior motifs feature seedlings, leafy branches and cherry blossoms. A Tiffany art glass piece that dates to 1915 can be found on the second floor. The piece, entitled “The Resurrection,” was purchased from a United Presbyterian Church in Armenia, New York, which was torn down in 2015.

The Layton Utah Temple is one of the Church of Jesus Christ’s 30 houses of the Lord dedicated or under construction or renovation in Utah.

When dedicated, the Layton Utah Temple will be the 195th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the 22nd temple completed in Utah. Other functioning Utah temples include the Bountiful, Brigham City, Cedar City, Draper, Jordan River, Logan, Manti, Monticello, Mount Timpanogos, Ogden, Oquirrh Mountain, Orem, Payson, Provo City Center, Red Cliffs, Saratoga Springs, St. George, Taylorsville and Vernal Temples. Renovation work continues on the historic Salt Lake Temple, and the Provo Utah Temple will be rebuilt. Additional temples currently under construction in Utah include the Deseret Peak, Ephraim, Heber, Lindon, Smithfield and Syracuse. Two other temples have been announced in Lehi and West Jordan.

Utah, the Church’s world headquarters, is home to nearly 2.2 million Latter-day Saints, or nearly two-thirds of the state’s population, in more than 5,400 congregations.

Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ are different from meetinghouses or chapels where members gather for Sunday worship services. A temple is considered a house of the Lord, where the teachings of Jesus Christ are reaffirmed through marriage, baptism and other sacred agreements that unite families for eternity.