LAYTON, UTAH — Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles dedicated the Layton Utah Temple on Sunday, June 16, and encouraged those who will worship and serve in it to establish and strengthen a “covenant connection” with Heavenly Father and His Son through what they learn there.
Elder Bednar was accompanied by his wife, Sister Susan Bednar; Elder Brian K. Taylor, General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the Utah Area presidency; his wife, Sister Jill Taylor; Elder Kevin R. Duncan, General Authority Seventy and executive director of the Temple Department; and his wife, Sister Nancy Duncan.
Speaking to Church News before dedicating this new house of the Lord, Elder Bednar quoted from Doctrine and Covenants 88:119, where the Lord commanded the Saints: “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.”
Pointing to the need for Latter-day Saints to learn through their experiences in the temple and in their weekly Church meetings, Elder Bednar asked: “Where do we learn about a house of order and a house of prayer? In the instruction we receive both in our Sabbath worship and in the house of the Lord.”
Elder Bednar taught that worshipping in the house of the Lord or in chapels is a means to an end, not an end unto itself.
“The end of all our worship should be evident in our homes and in our individual lives and homes,” he said. “As we observe, as we listen and as we learn in those sacred settings, we should reflect what we learn in how we treat other people.”
The house of the Lord is a special place with unique peace and stillness available. However, it is not meant to be an escape from the world. Elder Bednar said that in the house of the Lord, individuals can receive the instruction and edification needed “to overcome the world.”
“Based on what we can learn in those sacred settings and places and times, we are better able to receive spiritual strength and fortify our homes,” he said.
House of the Lord
In recent years Elder Bednar has increasingly encouraged members of the Church to refer to temples as “houses of the Lord.”
“It sounds and feels different when we say, ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ as opposed to other names used to reference the Church. The focus on the Savior makes all the difference in the world. That same principle applies to His holy house — the house of the Lord.”
He is not suggesting the word “temple” is inappropriate or should not be used. He says referring to it as “the house of the Lord” helps us focus upon the Savior and His redemptive mission.
“We do not come to the house of the Lord simply to enjoy the beauty of the structure. We come here to learn about the Father’s plan, the Savior’s Atonement, and to establish and strengthen a covenant connection with the Father and the Son,” he said.
Elder Bednar referenced a message from President Russell M. Nelson in October 2022 when he taught about the love of God that the Hebrew language calls “hesed” (חֶסֶד).
“That special covenant love — that covenant connection — is the source of perspective and strength to live in the world in these latter days when things are in commotion everywhere,” Elder Bednar said.
Finding answers to questions
Elder Bednar said many individuals rightfully go to the house of the Lord with a question they seek to have answered. He suggested individuals could sometimes benefit from reversing the sequence.
“We can and should come away from our worship in the house of the Lord with additional questions that we need to pursue,” he said. “Sometimes the answer is not a solution. Sometimes the answer to our concern is an additional question. And when we come out of the house of the Lord, we take that new question into our homes, into our scripture study, into our prayers, into our conversation with other family members.”
Furthermore, Elder Bednar also taught what may be a reversal in how some individuals see the hierarchy of where worship occurs.
“The ultimate destination is the home — not the house of the Lord, not the chapel,” he said. “Those are the stops along the way where we are spiritually reinvigorated, energized, helped and strengthened to be able to then do in our lives and homes the things that we need to do.”
He also clarified that each individual’s home may look different from another’s. This model of taking questions from the house of the Lord back to the home for study doesn’t require home to look a certain way. The important thing is that the individual or individuals in the home be willing to put in the spiritual work to find answers and grow in faith in Jesus Christ.
“It is about making your home a refuge from the storm for a devoted disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is about creating the spiritual place of refuge and protection in a world that is in commotion.”
‘The dews from heaven’
In his April 2024 general conference message, Elder Bednar taught about stillness and the blessings that come from being still. In that message, he shared four “principal purposes of sacred time and holy places.” The first three relate to the three members of the Godhead. The fourth was to focus on the promises tied to ordinances and covenants. While at the Layton house of the Lord, Elder Bednar explained how patience plays a role in seeing the promises related directly to ordinances and covenants.
“We better understand as we are patient and as we wait upon the Lord. An understanding of those promises comes line upon line, precept upon precept, grace for grace, or like the dews from heaven,” he taught.
He said the metaphor of “the dews from heaven” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:45) is particularly instructive. Dew distills upon grass gradually all night long. In a similar way, we become more acquainted with the promised blessings as we consistently press forward with steadfastness along the covenant path.
Pioneer history
Sunday morning broke with a light cloud cover that shaded attendees of the first dedicatory session from the summer sun until they took their seats inside the three-story, 93,539-square-foot building. The 22nd house of the Lord to be dedicated in Utah, the Layton temple sits on 11.8 acres on a hillside between two main traffic arteries north of Salt Lake City — Interstate 15 and U.S. Highway 89. Day or night, the temple is visible to many who travel through the area.
The location was initially reviewed by the late President Thomas S. Monson with his counselors, President Henry B. Eyring and then-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The land had been owned by Mark and Elaine Morgan who, according to their daughter, Marsha Richins, said the piece of ground was special and they hadn’t wanted to develop it like much of the land that surrounded it. Joseph Morgan and Hannah Weaver Morgan settled this land in 1854 when they arrived from England after converting to the Church there. The property stayed with the family until the Church selected it to be the location of a house of the Lord in Layton.
The 194th and 195th houses of the Lord were both dedicated Sunday. Hours before the Layton temple was dedicated, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, also of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, dedicated the Salta Argentina Temple. The two were announced at the same general conference, on April 1, 2018, by President Nelson. Ground was broken for both in 2020 amid COVID-19 challenges, and both began construction during the unique circumstances of that time. And both had their open houses during May of this year.
Personal feelings and impressions
Just a mile from the first reservoir built in Utah, Latter-day Saints in Layton can now draw closer to the “fountain of living waters” (1 Nephi 11:25) through ordinances and covenants in the house of the Lord.
Katie Harrison of the Heather Glen Ward, Layton Utah North Stake, told Church News she found “indescribable peace” in the house of the Lord after recently losing her husband.
“No other place can give me the peace that I feel when I’m here. There’s nowhere else in the world — here and in my home — where I can feel the Lord’s love for our family.”
The house of the Lord is a symbol of strength and a symbol of God’s love, she said, adding that patrons can find that love and strength even by just being on the grounds.
“They will be able to feel the love that the Savior has for them,” she said of her four children and two stepchildren. “It will give them the strength that they need to go through life, as they go through hard trials and challenges, and as they search for answers to the questions that they have.”
To prepare for the dedication, the Mecham Meadows Ward, Layton Utah Layton Hills Stake, made a chart of the temple that ward members would fill in with their names each time they went to the house of the Lord.
“It reminded us that it’s important for us to go and that as a ward family we go,” said Jason Sam, bishop of the Mecham Meadows Ward. “It is individual, but exaltation is for all of us, and we all have to support one another on that path.”
Bishop Sam was touched that Elder Bednar repeatedly referred to the edifice as the house of the Lord instead of as a temple. “He continued with this idea that this is just a building, that it’s more than that; that it’s the house of the Lord. It’s a place of reverence, of peace, where His Spirit abides, where He comes to be with us because He loves us and He wants us to make it home safely.”
He attended the first session of the dedication with his wife and five of their six children, the sixth being too young to attend. The oldest, 15-year-old Lydia, felt the Spirit confirm the sacredness of the building.
“There was a huge spiritual difference from going into the temple versus going out,” she said.
With the opportunity to perform proxy ordinances, Lydia is looking forward to attending more regularly. “One of the things that’s stopping people from coming to the temple is not having enough time. And now that we have a temple that’s a lot closer, I want to make a goal of coming every week.”
Guy and DeeAnn Johnson of the Fruit Heights 4th Ward, Fruit Heights Utah Stake, were reminded by the Spirit that ordinances and covenants performed in the house of the Lord draw Saints closer to Him.
“I realized when he dedicated each different area — like the baptistry, the initiatory area, the endowment room — that all of those different things mean so much, and each different ordinance is so sacred and wonderful.”
Guy Johnson received a greater witness that this newly dedicated Layton temple is a house of the Lord. “It’s His house. He’s invited us to come here to His home. That’s where I feel connected to Him and close to Him.”
These covenants allow strength, they said, as Saints draw nearer to the Savior in a chaotic world.
“As we have raised our children,” said DeeAnn Johnson, “the temple has been a great foundation for us as we’ve struggled with the things that they struggle with and tried to guide them, and it has been a great blessing.”
Having served as the executive secretary for the temple’s open house and dedication committee, Wade Dummer, of the Maple Way Ward in the Layton Utah Holmes Creek Stake, said he will always remember how he saw Heavenly Father’s influence on individuals as they came to the house of the Lord in Layton.
“The thing that will always stand out to me is how the Lord’s hand was in the lives of people, as they would come,” he said. “He was always there to help people meet up with other people they needed to meet so that they could have a positive experience.”
Dummer said this didn’t just happen once or twice. It was a regular occurrence.
“I can’t even say how many times it happened each day. The timing was always right”
Dummer’s wife, Shanna Dummer, said she felt similarly and that Heavenly Father orchestrated miracles to help visitors know “that He is here in His house.”
“The scripture that reads ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Doctrine and Covenants 101:16) resonated with us from the very beginning,” she said, adding, “People would come, and they had an opportunity to be still and know that His is God and feel His love.”
Elder Tom Checketts, a Utah Area Seventy, and his wife, Sister Lynette Checketts, served as the co-chairs for the open house and dedication committees.
As the temple was being built, Sister Checketts said she was focused on how the house of the Lord is referred to as a “house of glory” in the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland Temple in Doctrine and Covenants 109:8.
“I really wanted to understand what ‘glory’ meant and what glory looked like,” she said. Throughout the open house and Sunday’s dedication, she said she learned the different ways that glory can be seen.
“Everywhere I could feel the manifestation of the presence of Heavenly Father’s and His Son’s love for their people.”
In addition to seeing God’s love for His children, Elder Checketts said, he saw the love of God’s children for Him.
“When we opened the website portal for volunteers to sign up, we had more than 10,000 volunteers sign up in the first hour. I think that shows the excitement that people had for this house of the Lord,” he said.
Those volunteers served in many ways over the course of the open house, and Elder Checketts said he witnessed many consecrated efforts of those who took their roles seriously in the service of the Lord and in the service of those visiting the temple.
“The consecrated efforts of the many have been blessed by the Lord to help others feel of His love and feel His power,” he said. “And that has been a grand experience.”
