Temple Trips: Los Angeles California Temple

Monday, April 24, 2023

Los Angeles California Temple

The Los Angeles California Temple was my 5th temple

The Los Angeles Temple is the second largest temple in the world, measuring at 190,614 square feet. The only temple bigger is the Salt Lake Temple. The temple was dedicated in 1956. It is located at 10777 Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles. One really neat thing about this temple is driving towards it, on Overland Avenue -- the giant, beautiful building is visible from far away as you drive up the road towards it, standing regally at the top of a hill. It is a stunning sight to behold! There are quite a few things that I love about this temple. One is the painting in the baptistry of Jesus being baptized. A temple worker told me the story behind the painting. She said that the artist had gone to the Jordan River to paint the scene, and he was able to recreate what it looked like there, except for painting Jesus Christ. He asked David O. McKay, who was the prophet at the time, and he described to the artist that Jesus had "chestnut hair and hazel eyes." The artist painting John the Baptist and Jesus into the Jordan River scene, and President McKay told him that it was a very good likeness of Jesus Christ.

The Los Angeles Temple baptistry is the only baptistry I have been in with a clock on the wall -- one of those old fashioned clocks that are built into the wall, with moving hands and numbers glued directly to the wall. I have never noticed a clock in any other baptistry in any other temple.

One of the temple workers also told me a neat story about a time that the electricity went out in the Los Angeles temple area, so they had to close the temple because they couldn't run the sessions. A lady had been working on her genealogy and was frustrated with not being able to find a certain ancestor. She decided that she needed heavenly intervention so she drove to the temple. Upon arrival she learned that the electricity was out and she wouldn't be able to go on a session. So she drove to the Newport Beach Temple instead. When she went on the session, the name that she was given for her endowment session was the very name that she had been searching for! It was heavenly intervention that caused the electricity to go out and redirected this lady to the other temple.

The grounds around the Los Angeles Temple are quite extensive and very well kept. There are some very unique trees on the grounds as well, which I enjoyed looking at. I can't imagine the amount of work that goes into taking care of all of the grounds around the temple! The view from the temple grounds of the Los Angeles area is also really amazing!

I first attended the Los Angeles Temple in 1995 when we went to tour my husband's mission in San Diego. I wish I had a photo of the temple from that trip! I went back to this temple a few times, including in 2022 and 2025.

In 2022 my 2 daughters and my daughter's boyfriend went with me to perform baptisms on a trip to California. We went to Disneyland, California Adventure, the beach, the Hollywood sign, and to both the Redlands and Los Angeles Temples. We stayed at the Anaheim Desert Inn & Suites, which is just across the street from Disneyland. It's about 40 minutes from the Los Angeles temple.

My daughter Lizzie and I went back to do baptisms at the temple in June of 2025. We were on a reunion trip with her cousins and wanted to go to all 3 of the temples in the area - Los Angeles, Redlands, and Newport Beach. We stayed at an Airbnb that was a little over an hour from the Los Angeles Temple. We also went to Disneyland, California Adventure, and Huntington Beach. The Los Angeles Temple is under an hour from Disneyland & California Adventure. The temple is 25 minutes away from the Los Angeles airport. It's about a half hour away from the ocean.