PAYSON TEMPLE OPENS DOORS TO PUBLIC

The Celestial Room inside the Payson LDS Temple.  Photo courtesy The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

PAYSON, Utah— The public is invited to tour the newly completed Payson Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The open house began on Friday  24 April 2015, and will continue through Saturday 23 May 2015, excluding Sundays. Tours are available on Monday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Tuesday through Saturday from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.

The temple is located in southwestern Payson, 1494 South 930 West, and can be easily accessed within a mile from the 800 South exit of I-15. It sits on a gently sloping 10.63-acre parcel adjacent to a recently constructed Church meetinghouse.

Open house tickets are required and can be obtained free of charge by logging on to https://templeopenhouse.lds.org/ or by calling 1-800-537-6214.

Following the public open house, the temple will be formally dedicated on Sunday, 7 June 2015 as the 146th operating temple of the Church. Three separate dedicatory sessions will be held at 10:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 4:00 p.m. The temple will serve more than 93,000 Latter-day Saints from Mapleton to Delta, Utah.

More than 13,000 local Latter-day Saint youth will celebrate the opening of the temple in a cultural celebration on Saturday, 6 June 2015, at 7:00 p.m. in the Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo.

Latter-day Saint temples differ from the meetinghouses or chapels where members meet for Sunday worship services. Temples are considered "houses of the Lord" where Christ's teachings are reaffirmed through marriage, baptism and other ordinances that unite families for eternity.

Inside the temple, members learn more about the purpose of life and make covenants to serve Jesus Christ and their fellow man.