PROVO, Utah -- The wait is over! The Provo City Center Temple is open to the public for its open house.
The community has been watching leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints work together with the city to rebuild the burned down Provo Tabernacle. It went up in flames in December of 2010.
Families started arriving at 7 a.m. Friday to tour the new temple, which is open to the public briefly before it will be dedicated in a religious ceremony, after which entrance will be reserved to members of the faith who have a temple recommend.
By 11:00 a.m. Friday, there had already been 1,000 people walking through. Families told FOX 13 they were so happy to bring their children through the tour with them.
“Temples, eternal families, they’re a big part of our belief and what we want for our family, so we want our girls to experience that and kind of understand why it's important to us to go to the temple and kind of see what mom and dad do when we go to the temple,” said a mother visiting the new temple with her husband and three young daughters.
The LDS Church's website states:
"The free open house starts on Friday, January 15, and will go through Saturday, March 5, 2016. It will run every day except for the Sundays of January 17, 24, and 31 and February 7, 14, 21, and 28.
A cultural celebration will take place on Saturday, March 19.
The temple will be dedicated on Sunday, March 20, 2016, in sessions at 9:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. and will be broadcast to Utah meetinghouses. The three-hour block of meetings will be cancelled for that Sunday."
The LDS Church is still giving away tickets for the open house, but only in increments. Leaders said the demand is so high they had to stagger the release of tickets, only releasing a certain amount at any given time. Tickets can be ordered online or over the phone, click here for details.
