What to Tell Your Kids About Temples You'll Never Visit

On Monday the Church put out dates for two temples. The Torreón Mexico Temple has a media day on October 19 through 21, a public open house from October 22 to November 7 (closed Sundays) and a dedication on November 22. The Colorado Springs Colorado Temple breaks ground on Saturday, September 12, with Elder Karl D. Hirst of the Central Area Presidency presiding.

I read it on my phone at the cabin, and my first thought was that nobody in my family will be in Torreón this fall. My second was that this is exactly the sort of news children overhear and ask about at the worst possible moment, so I'd better decide what I'm going to say before one of them asks.

What do you say to a two-year-old about a temple?

Ben is two years and nine months old and calls every building with a pointed top a temple, including the canopy over the gas pumps in Garden City. I used to correct him. Now I say that one's a gas station and the white one in the picture is a temple, and that's the end of it.

For his age I've settled on three sentences that I repeat until they're boring. A temple is a special house. It's very clean and very quiet inside. Mommy and Daddy go there to make promises to Heavenly Father and to be together as a family, and Ben will go when he's bigger. I don't say "sealed" or "forever" to him, because forever is still the stretch of time between now and snack.

We have a framed Salt Lake Temple in the hallway and a smaller picture on the fridge, and he points at both and says "temple" in the voice he uses for dogs. If you can, drive a toddler past a real one and park for ten minutes. He doesn't need you to say anything while you sit there.

What does an eight-year-old want to know?

Lily was baptized in June and wants the actual rule. A week afterward she asked if she was done, meaning done with the big promises. I told her baptism is the first covenant, that the temple is where people make more of them, and that she's allowed to be curious about it long before she's ready for it.

What I watch for with a child her age is the moment "you can't go in yet" turns into "you aren't good enough," which a child can hear without anyone saying it. So I say plainly that the temple has an age, the way a driver's license does, and that being under it says nothing about her. I wrote about getting her to the font in Getting Lily Ready for Baptism Took Longer Than the Interview, and what I learned there applies again. She tends to ask the question she's really worried about two days after you thought the conversation was over.

Why does the Church keep building so many temples?

Caleb is eleven and keeps track of numbers, batting averages and pitch counts and how many missionaries are out, and I wrote about one of his more pointed questions in Caleb Asked If Missions Have a Roster Cap. He'd seen a long list of new temple names somewhere and wanted to know the point of so many.

The practical answer is the one that holds up with him. A temple is where families are sealed and where we do baptisms and other ordinances for people who died without them, and those things happen only in a temple. If the nearest one is a flight away, a lot of people never go. The announcement itself notes twelve more temples in Mexico alone, announced or under construction. That's a lot of members who live a long way from the closest one.

Colorado Springs is a gentler example. The site is about eighteen and a half acres at Flying Horse Club Drive and Barossa Valley Road, in the north of the city, and the building is planned at roughly 45,000 square feet on one floor. Those families have Denver now, which is an hour or more by car, and that's a very different thing from a plane ticket, but it's still a full day with small children in the back seat. I showed Caleb the map and the distance, and the numbers did more for him than my explaining did.

How do you explain a temple your family will never visit?

Torreón is the harder case.

Nothing about it is on the way to anything we do, and my Spanish is a few words I can't be trusted with.

I don't want my children thinking a temple in Mexico is somebody else's temple, as if the Church were a handful of private clubs. I also don't want to say "we'll go someday," because I don't know that we will. So I tell them the Torreón temple was built for the families who live near Torreón, the way ours was built for the families near us, and that those families have been waiting for it. Then I tell them the open house is open to the public and that we can look at the pictures together when they come out. The dedication is Sunday, November 22. Whether it will be broadcast anywhere we can watch I don't know yet, and I'm not telling Caleb it will.

Isaiah has a picture of temples that I keep going back to, and it's the one I'd read to Lily.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. (Isaiah 2:2)

I'm not offering it as the full meaning of the verse. Isaiah is looking at people streaming toward one mountain from every direction, and what a child can take from it is that the Lord's house is a place people go up to, and that there are many people going.

The Kirtland dedicatory prayer is a list I like better than most of what's been written for children. In D&C 109:8 the prayer repeats an earlier commandment about the building they were dedicating, to "establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God." Caleb stopped on "a house of order" and said it sounded like a library. I said that was close enough for now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can young children go inside a temple?

Not for regular temple attendance, which waits until later. They do go in for sealings, their own family's among them. The public open house before a dedication is open to everyone, and babies are welcome. When reservations open, check the temple's own page so you know about tickets and hours.

When can my kids start doing temple work?

Youth can do baptisms for the dead with a limited-use recommend beginning in January of the year they turn twelve. Caleb's birthday is in February, so for him it's this coming January, and he's already counted. The endowment and sealing come much later, and I'd leave those to your bishop and your own child's readiness.

What do I say when a child asks why we can't go to the new temple?

Say it was built for the families who live there. Skip "we can never go," because you don't know that. Skip "we'll go someday" too, unless you're ready to be held to it by a child with a good memory.

Is "when you're older" a fine answer?

For a four-year-old, sure. After that it needs a real sentence attached about what the thing is for, or the child hears a shrug.

I use "when you're older" far more than I should, and I don't like that the Church's usual answer to a child's question about the temple is so often a wait. There's good reasoning behind the ages and I'm not arguing with it. But an eleven-year-old doesn't live in the reasoning. He lives in the waiting, and the Church's announcements arrive with dates and square footage and nothing a parent can hand to a child. I'd like something written for him.

with love, Melissa