The Provo Utah Temple has a new name
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Tuesday that when the Provo Utah Temple reopens, it’ll be known as the Provo Utah Rock Canyon Temple.
The Provo Utah Temple will close on Saturday for renovation.
For over 50 years, missionaries at the Provo Utah Missionary Training Center, students, staff and faculty at Brigham Young University and Provo community members have performed sacred ordinances at the Provo Utah Temple. The temple is where members of the Church of Jesus Christ can go to worship God and make promises to God.
Temples, also known as the House of the Lord, are built all across the world.
The Provo Utah Temple is located at the mouth of Rock Canyon on Provo’s east bench. The view from the temple overlooks the city of Provo as well as BYU. It was the sixth temple built in Utah. Provo is home to another temple known as the Provo City Center Temple.
The temple was first dedicated on Feb. 9, 1972. The architect Emil B. Fetzer also designed other temples including Ogden Utah, Atlanta Georgia, Jordan River and Santiago Chile.
President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote the dedicatory prayer, which President Harold B. Lee offered.
“Thou knowest, O Father, that we these blessings, not only for ourselves and our descendants, but also for our forebears; for thou hast said that we, as saviors on Mount Zion, have power to save and redeem our worthy dead,” Smith said in the prayer. “We seek so to do, and we plead for thy guidance and directing light as we go forward in this work — one of the greatest ever revealed to the children of men in any age of the earth.”
The dedicatory prayer also referenced the importance of the temple’s location near the school. “Let that great temple of learning, the Brigham Young University, and all that is associated with it, and all other Church schools, institutes, and seminaries be prospered to the full. Let thy enlightening power rest upon those who teach and those who are taught, that they may ‘seek learning, even by study and also by faith,’” President Smith said.
Throughout the course of its open house, 246,201 people visited the temple, the Church News reported. One of the key moments in the temple’s history occurred in 1976, when according to LDS Living, the Provo Utah Temple broke a record with 76,000 endowments in a single month.
President Russell M. Nelson announced the reconstruction of the Provo Utah Temple in his October 2021 general conference talk. He said it would occur after the Orem Utah Temple was dedicated.
“As I emphasized this morning, please make time for the Lord in His holy house,” President Nelson said during his concluding remarks. “Nothing will strengthen your spiritual foundation like temple service and temple worship.”
