Open House Begins for Pocatello Idaho Temple 

Final touches have been added to the Pocatello Idaho Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the open house gets underway this week.

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“This is an opportunity for all of the Saints here to be great neighbors in normal and natural ways to just reach out and love those around them and invite them to help them understand what the temple is all about,” said Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, who is serving as the president of the North America Central Area.

Elder Nielsen is in Pocatello with other Church leaders, including Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, for a media day and to help host tours for invited guests that will be held throughout the week. The public is invited to tour the new temple, located in southeastern Idaho, beginning on Saturday, September 18, 2021.

“As we walked up to the temple we saw those words — ‘the house of the Lord.’ And what a statement that is for us, especially Latter-day Saints to know that we have a place to go worship that is the house of the Lord," said Elder Stevenson after leading a tour for media on Monday.

“It’s a beautifully designed building — architecturally, beautifully proportioned, very pleasing to the eye. But what is even more pleasing is all of the beautiful things that take place inside of temples," said the Apostle.

“This is really a special opportunity for me to come home to my birthplace, on my birthday, and to celebrate this beautiful new temple in these majestic foothills of Pocatello,” said Sister Camille N. Johnson, Primary general president and a native of Pocatello. “I’m delighted for the dear Saints here that will have the blessing of the temple here on their hillside.”

Also participating in the media day are Elder Gary B. Sabin, assistant executive director of the Temple Department, and other members of the North America Central Area Presidency.

“It’s over 71,000 square feet, this temple. Temples throughout the world vary in size, but this is quite a large temple," explained Elder Sabin.

Community leaders of many faiths have been invited to participate in the tours this week. 

“I think the benefits are to be had by everyone in the community — of every culture, every faith, every background. The beauty of the temple is that it’s here for us because it’s the Lord’s house and we’re all God’s children," said Ross Hugues, president of the Tyhee Stake, which includes members of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes. 

“One of the most important things that I think about is my children that are going to be able to go there and see it every day and have that experience where they can have a goal to be there and feel how much love and peace that’s there with us," added Jennifer Dye, who is coordinating the open house with her husband, Troy. 

Dye said that the youth have been involved in planting 25,000 flowers to prepare the grounds for the temple open house.

The temple open house runs through Saturday, October 23, except for Sundays, including September 19, 26, October 2–3 (general conference), 10 and 17.

Reservations are available online for complimentary tickets to the open house.

The Pocatello temple will be dedicated on Sunday, November 7, 2021, in three sessions, by President M. Russell Ballard, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The dedicatory sessions will be held at 9 a.m., noon and 3 p.m.

A youth devotional will be held on Saturday, November 6. The dedicatory sessions and youth devotional will be broadcast to all congregations in the Pocatello Idaho Temple District.

“[The temple] brings light, and it brings the love of Jesus Christ to the people,” added Elder Nielsen. “It gives everybody an opportunity to find light and love in their lives. So, it’s going to be a beautiful thing for this community.”

“I think Pocatello is going to receive generous blessings because of their faithfulness and the consecrated nature of the Saints here,” said Sister Johnson.

Temple Features

The temple sits high on the eastern foothills of Pocatello. The exterior is a light gray granite. The sacred structure is a streamlined classical architec­ture design and is patterned after other temples as well as other buildings in Pocatello.

The art glass features wildflowers of the Idaho mountain desert, including the syringa, which is the Idaho state flower, and the bitterroot. The colors in the art glass are sage, representing the sagebrush of the region; gold, representing the wild grasses that turn gold in the summer; and pink and coral, representing the sunset, the bitterroot flower and Red Hill above Pocatello.

Ground was broken for the Gem State’s new temple in the spring of 2019. The temple was announced in April 2017 by Church President Thomas S. Monson.

This will be Idaho’s sixth operating temple. Temples are in Boise, Idaho Falls, Meridian, Rexburg and Twin Falls. A seventh temple has been announced in Burley.

Idaho is home to more than 460,000 Latter-day Saints. The Pocatello Idaho Temple will serve about 61,000 members from the area.

Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints differ from meetinghouses or chapels where members meet for Sunday worship services. Each temple is considered a “house of the Lord,” where Jesus Christ’s teachings are reaffirmed through baptism and other ordinances that unite families for eternity.