Birthday Quest: Arizona's 5 LDS Temples

LDS Gilbert Arizona Temple — I had birthday cupcakes with friends at the Gilbert temple.

To celebrate my birthday last week I decided to visit all five LDS temples in Arizona. This ambitious idea required a plan. Two of them are three hours away from Phoenix in opposite directions, and at least four hours are needed for each of the others in the Valley due to travel to and from and time spent there.

When I told my plan to coworkers and other friends who are not LDS, the idea of celebrating my birthday by visiting five temples or even one temple was not something they could imagine as very exciting. For me, it was great. I thoroughly enjoyed each excursion.

LDS Phoenix Arizona Temple at Sunset — I watched the sunset at four of the five temples and the sunrise on my way to the fifth.

Perhaps the reason they couldn’t imagine it being an exciting birthday is because they don’t understand what temples are all about. They may have thought I was going to listen to five sermons or something similar during the week when really it is nothing like that.

I’ve written about temples before and their importance to me, but never really discussed what goes on in a temple. What takes place in temples is different from what happens in a standard church building where sermons, Sunday school lessons and other seemingly regular worship activities take place. In temples we make sacred promises to God and learn about his plan for our eternal happiness.

I invite you to go to the following link to learn more specifically about what goes on in the temple, why we build temples and what you would see inside a temple: https://www.lds.org/church/temples/why-we-build-temples/what-happens-in-temples?lang=eng.

Here are some pictures from my birthday week’s adventure to Arizona’s five houses of the Lord.