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The new Syracuse Temple, pictured during its media open house on Wednesday, May 6, 2025. A public open house will run from May 10-31 with its dedication to take place Sunday, June 8, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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Parker Lambert, a member of the Fox Hollow Ward and a senior at Clearfield High School, speaks at a media event for the new Syracuse Utah Temple on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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In the baptistry inside the Syracuse Utah Temple, faithful Latter-day Saints can be baptized on behalf of their deceased ancestors, who can choose whether to accept this baptism.

Photo supplied, Intellectual Reserve

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The new Syracuse Temple, pictured during its media open house on Wednesday, May 6, 2025. A public open house will run from May 10-31 with its dedication to take place Sunday, June 8, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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Rebecca Gaburel, a member of the West Point 15th Ward and a junior at Syracuse High School, speaks at a media event for the new Syracuse Utah Temple on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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The bride’s room of the Syracuse Utah Temple. No ordinances are performed in this room; it is a space for women to prepare for their temple sealing.

Photo supplied, Intellectual Reserve

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Elder Kevin R. Duncan, executive director of the Temple Department, speaks at a media event for the new Syracuse Utah Temple on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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The new Syracuse Temple, pictured during its media open house on Wednesday, May 6, 2025. A public open house will run from May 10-31 with its dedication to take place Sunday, June 8, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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Sister Kristin M. Yee, second counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, speaks at a media event for the new Syracuse Utah Temple on Wednesday, May 7, 2025.

Rob Nielsen, Standard-Examiner

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SYRACUSE — The Syracuse Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just under a month from being the church’s 206th dedicated temple.

This weekend, the doors open on the Syracuse temple’s open house period, which will last from Saturday through May 30, excluding Sundays. The temple, which was announced in April 2020 by church President Russell M. Nelson, will come with an addition not found in any other temple yet dedicated — a second baptismal font. The three-story temple comes in at approximately 90,000 square feet and stands on a 12-acre site at 1098 S. 2500 West in Syracuse.

During a media briefing and tour of the temple Wednesday, two area youths discussed what the new temple is going to mean to them.

Parker Lambert, a member of the Fox Hollow Ward and senior at Clearfield High School, said the Syracuse temple will help serve more people that need it.

“Sometimes the hardest thing about going to temple, in my experience, is just finding appointments because there’s so many people in this area who want to spend that time in the temple,” he said. “This temple is going to open up so much accessibility for youth to be able to go do baptisms here. I think that’s such a beautiful, exciting thing and I’m just so ready for it to be dedicated.”

Rebecca Gaburel, a member of the West Point 15th Ward and junior at Syracuse High School, said the new temple will make her experience far different than that of her parents.

“My parents are Mexican immigrants that immigrated here to the United States when my brother was a couple of months old,” she said. “They always told me stories about how they had to travel days to get to the nearest temple when they lived in Mexico. Just to know how blessed I am to first, have the Ogden temple, and now have the Syracuse temple 10 minutes away from me and to be able to come here whenever I feel the need to be closer to my Heavenly Father is absolutely amazing.”

Elder Kevin R. Duncan, executive director of the Temple Department for the church, said the Syracuse temple fits in well with the church’s attempts to boost access.

“One of the great reasons we have temples more close to us is not just accessibility by distance, but it’s also by time to allow us to enter in more,” he said. “Every time we build these temples, they become more and more busy. The Layton temple is not that far away, but it’s hard to get an appointment to worship there. And now, with triple the capacity with two baptistries in this temple, it will be a blessing, not just to the youth in Syracuse and West Point and Clinton and Clearfield and Sunset, but I’ll bet we’ll see youth from Layton and even as far as Farmington coming to this temple because they’ll have greater access to the temple.”

Following the press tour, Sister Kristin M. Yee, second counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, told the Standard-Examiner the new temple will be especially impactful in this area.

“There are a lot of temple-going faithful youth in this area,” she said. “This is a special temple when it comes to youth. They’ll have the opportunity to access it more readily.”

She added the Syracuse temple comes at a crucial time for the church in the region.

“There’s so many who desire to be in this house and receive those blessings and we need more access meaning we need more times to actually come in the temple,” she said. “We have two fonts; that doubles the number of opportunities — appointments — that youth can make to come and do baptisms for the day. That doubles their opportunity to be there.”

Duncan told the Standard-Examiner it’s not just area youth that this extra capacity is serving.

“As the world becomes more and more challenging for a lot of people, people find they’re drawn to and they want to worship in the temple,” he said. “There’s so many members of faith in this area. We need more temples so that they can be in the temple as they would like to be.”

He said there will be even more temples coming to the region, including in Smithville, Lindon and West Jordan. The Syracuse temple will be the 22nd to be dedicated in the state of Utah.

In the meantime, Duncan said the Syracuse temple open house period is a chance for people of all walks of life to learn.

“I just hope that people who haven’t had an opportunity and are just kind of curious what we do in a temple — there’s never a better time than now to come through this temple and learn what we do,” he said. “We’ll be happy to answer any questions.”

The Syracuse temple is set to be dedicated June 8.

Open house visits are free but reservations are recommended. For more information and to make reservations, visit https://tinyurl.com/4td6ks2e.