Arizona Temple Visitors Center

The Arizona Temple is a noted landmark with beautifully manicured gardens throughout the grounds. Stroll around meticulously manicured gardens or investigate a fanciful cactus garden. Come for your free tour of the visitors’ center and see a beautiful Christus statue, videos, an animated diorama, and interactive exhibits.

Get into the Christmas spirit by gazing at 600,000 twinkling lights set in the picturesque desert landscape of citrus trees, cacti, and palm trees. The lights display 50 life-size figures, including a Nativity scene, the three Wise Men and their camels, and others. Also at the visitors’ center, enjoy a short film depicting the birth of Christ.

At Easter, celebrate Christ’s miraculous Resurrection by attending the free outdoor pageant, Jesus the Christ. The production reenacts events in the Savior’s life through music, dance, and drama. It is the largest annual outdoor Easter Pageant in the world.

About the Temple …

Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are sacred structures in which solemn mysteries of life and other eternal questions are answered. Each is dedicated as a house of the Lord, a place of holiness and peace shut apart from the world. There, truths are taught and ordinances are performed that bring knowledge of things eternal and motivate the participants to live with an understanding of our divine inheritance as children of God and an awareness of our potential as eternal beings.

These buildings, different from the thousands of regular Church houses of worship scattered over the earth, are unique in purpose and function from all other religious edifices. It is not the size of these buildings or their architectural beauty that makes them so. It is the work that goes on within their walls.

The designation of certain buildings for special ordinances, as distinguished from regular places of worship, is not new. This was the practice in ancient Israel, where the people worshiped regularly in the synagogues. Their more sacred place was, first, the tabernacle in the wilderness with its Holy of Holies, and then a succession of temples, where special ordinances were performed and where only those who met the required qualifications could participate in these ordinances.

So it is today. Prior to the dedication of a temple, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invites the public to go through the building and inspect its various facilities. But when it is dedicated it becomes the house of the Lord, vested with a character so sacred that only members of the Church in good standing are permitted to enter. It is not a matter of secrecy. It is a matter of sanctity.