It doesn't seem like that long ago that a person could easily name all the temples for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the state of Utah.

Heck, you could drive by all of them on one of our highways in a few hours time.

But with Utah's population reaching an astounding 3.5 million and the Church's population surpassing 16 million, naming all the temples just in our state will take some effort.

As of the General Conference announcements a couple of weeks ago, there are currently 17 operating temples in Utah and 11 more in the works.

The easy ones to remember are the old ones: Salt Lake (1), St. George (2), Logan (3), Manti (4), Jordan River (5) [I include this as an old one, but the world's busiest LDS temple was erected in the 1980s and because I lived less than two miles away from it, I remember it being built], Ogden (6) and Provo (7) -- and it's worth noting that a couple of these including Salt Lake and St. George are currently under renovation.

In the mid-1990s, the Bountiful Temple (8) went up and that started a flurry of temples in Utah (and worldwide) being erected and dedicated.

By 1999, Utah had new temples in American Fork (9) [the Mount Timpanogas Temple], Vernal (10) and Monticello (11). A decade or so later, the Church had temples in Draper (12), plus a second temple in South Jordan (13) [called the Oquirrh Mountain Temple] and Provo (14) [called the Provo City Center Temple], plus temples in Brigham City (15) and Payson (16). In December of 2017, the Cedar City temple opened and became the 17th Utah temple to open for the church.

Announced, but not open yet (or under construction) are temples in Ephraim (18), Tooele (19), Layton (20), Lindon (21), Orem (22), Saratoga Springs (23), Syracuse (24), Taylorsville (25), Smithfield (26) and Heber Valley (27), and of course the beautiful new temple that is nearly finished on the border of St. George and Washington City, the Red Cliffs Temple (28).

It would take a monumental effort to see them all in one day.

By the way, the Church has not made an official statement on the opening of the Red Cliffs Temple or the reopening of the St. George Temple, but word on the street is that both places are still targeting completion dates within this calendar year.

 

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