BURLEY, Idaho — For the first time since becoming President of the Church in October 2025, President Dallin H. Oaks dedicated a house of the Lord.

Dedicated on Sunday, Jan. 11, the Burley Idaho Temple is the seventh Latter-day Saint temple in Idaho. It is also the 212th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the first house of the Lord dedicated in 2026.

This house of the Lord is also close to President Oaks’ heart.

He said that before President Russell M. Nelson’s death, the former President of the Church had given his counselors the opportunity to choose a temple to dedicate.

“I looked over a long list and immediately asked that I be assigned to dedicate this Burley Idaho Temple,” he said.

As a boy, President Oaks lived in Twin Falls for about five years. It was there that his father was on the high council for over four years before he died and where President Oaks attended the 1st and 2nd grades.

“So, I chose Burley to revisit my roots in this part of Southern Idaho,” he said.

Accompanying President Oaks at the dedication was his wife, Sister Kristen Oaks, as well as three General Authority Seventies: Elder Steven R. Bangerter, executive director of the Temple Department, with his wife, Sister Susan Bangerter; Elder José A. Teixeira, president of the United States Central Area, and his wife, Sister Filomena Teixeira; and Elder K. Brett Nattress, with his wife, Sister Shawna Nattress.

“This place has so much significance to him as a young boy,” Sister Oaks said. “He felt like he was drawn back here above all other places in the world.”

Said President Oaks, “I didn’t see any place that was more attractive to me than this community because I associate it with my youth.”

‘Centered on the Savior and Redeemer’

President Oaks said temples are essential to Heavenly Father’s plan for His children.

“In these houses of the Lord, we are taught the most important things we can learn and do in mortality,” he said. “The work of temples is centered on our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.”

All learned and done in temples relates to Jesus Christ, the Prophet said.

“Here in His house, we make sacred covenants with and in the name of Jesus Christ, which among other meanings signify His authority and His work,” he said. “All who worship here receive the blessings of His power and participate in His saving work. These blessings and this saving work, which we call ‘temple work,’ are supremely important for all of God’s children, those still living in mortality and those in the spirit world.”

Sister Oaks said she feels a change in her life as she worships in the temple.

“I have felt how precious time is and that you have choices on how to use it,” she said. “I go there for comfort, instruction, revelation. And it makes me a better wife, a better mother.”

Eternal families

This temple dedication comes after the death of President Nelson in September and the more recent death of President Jeffrey R. Holland, both of whom President Oaks worked with closely in the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

The death of loved ones is nothing new to President Oaks. His father died when he was just seven years old and his first wife, June Dixon, died from cancer in 1998.

“One of the great blessings we have in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is to look at mortality as a small slice of our identity and eternal progress,” he said. “We are pained when we lose the association … and there is an adjustment to be made in trying to go on with your life without their association. But basically death is a graduation to be celebrated as part of the purpose of life on earth.”

President Oaks has promised that time in the temple will bless families eternally.

In his most recent general conference address in October, he taught that the doctrine of the Church centers on the family.

“Essential to our doctrine on the family is the temple,” he said in October. “The ordinances received there enable us to return as eternal families to the presence of our Heavenly Father.”

In that same message, he shared how his own mother taught him about eternal families after his father died.

He said she taught that “we would always be a family because of their temple marriage. Our father was just away temporarily because the Lord had called him to a different work.”

‘An outpouring of spiritual blessings’

Many in the Burley area live here because of ancestors who overcame great hardship to settle this land. And just like early Latter-day Saint pioneers who were blessed despite opposition, Latter-day Saints today can receive an outpouring of spiritual blessings through their temple covenants.

“The scriptures speak of perilous times when men’s hearts will fail them,” he said. “They also speak of worthy disciples escaping these things, of their standing in holy places and not being moved.”

In the Prophet Joseph Smith’s dedication of the Kirtland Temple, he prayed for the Lord to prepare the hearts of the Saints. Many pioneers testified that the endowments received in the Nauvoo Temple sustained them through their challenges.

“Similarly, temple endowments made available to almost all faithful members through the building of so many temples worldwide in recent years will provide the same strengthening influences for the members of our day,” President Oaks said.

‘Trust the Lord’

To the youth of the Church, President Oaks said he wants them to be optimistic.

“We are optimistic because we trust the Lord and know that He loves us and He sent us here to succeed, not fail,” President Oaks said. “And that is the message the temple gives us.”

He also called the temple a “powerful symbol for the youth.”

“We are thrilled that the youth are going to the temple with greater numbers and with increased efficiency,” he said.

The youth of Zion

Speaking at the start of the public open house two months ago, Elder Bangerter praised the members of the Church in the area who have prayed for a temple.

“They’ve knelt on their knees and prayed for a temple of God in their midst,” he said. “And now this temple will be filled with the youth of Zion.”

Preparation for the temple has been happening among many of the rising generation in the Burley area for years.

Susan Young recalls when she and others would show up once a week at the Twin Falls Idaho Temple at 3:30 a.m. to open the gates for youth standing outside waiting to do baptisms for the dead in the early morning hours.

The youth would wait for the temple workers to get dressed in their temple clothes then make their way to the baptismal font.

“The whole baptistry was filled with youth sitting in white,” said Young, who was the Twin Falls temple matron from 2016 to 2019. “There was no talking; it was so reverent you could hear a pin drop.”

Young said many of those young men and young women came from Burley, Idaho, and other small towns in the area that will be in the new Burley Idaho Temple district. Young and her husband, Paul Young, both live in Burley.

“I’m not surprised we got a temple; there are some very, very valiant people,” Susan Young said.

The house of the Lord

As the people in the Burley area prepared for this day of dedication, many miracles were seen that confirmed to them that this is the Lord’s house and the Lord’s work.

Despite often being cold and windy during November, the public open house was blessed with many unseasonably warm days.

Dee and Bonnie Jones, who served as coordinators of the Burley temple open house and dedication committee, joked that it was so warm they were offering sunscreen for those standing outside.

Other logistical challenges were also resolved as the Joneses prepared. Bonnie Jones said it was beautiful to sit back and see everything come together.

“Because it’s His work and His house,” she said.

Dee Jones said, “It was very evident through the whole process that we were being guided by the Spirit. …

“I think it just confirms that abiding testimony that we already have of the Savior and that this is His work and the temple is His holy house.”

Saints in Burley

Olivia Hobson, 17, from the Burley West Stake, said the temple means everything to her.

“Because it gives us the opportunity to do the Lord’s work, which is so important to Him, but also for us here on earth,” she shared outside the temple after the dedication. “I’m so grateful to have a temple here.”

Hobson said she feels blessed to have this temple so close. She also has plans to attend the temple throughout her life.

“I hope to get endowed in this temple when I go on my mission and hopefully I can get married and sealed here too,” she said.

Another youth, Cache Johnson, from the Burley Idaho Stake, said the temple brings a lot of hope to his life.

“It’s nice to be able to baptize for my ancestors,” he said.

Johnson has plans to attend the temple for baptisms for the dead with his friends and other youth in his ward.

Roselinda Marange, from Harare, Zimbabwe, is visiting her son in Idaho and attended the dedication at a meetinghouse in the temple district. She said the temple has blessed her life.

“The temple has a very special place in my heart,” she said.

This was Marange’s first temple dedication, but on March 1, Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will dedicate the Harare Zimbabwe Temple, just a few minutes away from where Marange lives.

“It’s great knowing that in the Lord’s time things will happen, things that have been promised to us, and this is one of those things,” she said.

Burley Idaho Temple

On April 4, 2021, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Burley, Idaho. It was one of 20 locations he identified in the April 2021 general conference, including temples for five neighboring states.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held June 4, 2022, to commence the Burley temple’s construction phase. The event was presided over by Elder Brent H. Nielson — a Burley native and then of the Presidency of the Seventy who later received emeritus status in 2024.

The Burley temple is one of Idaho’s 11 houses of the Lord in various stages of operation, construction or planning.

Six of those temples are operating — in Idaho Falls (dedicated in 1945), Boise (1984), Rexburg (2008), Twin Falls (2008), Meridian (2017) and Pocatello (2021).

Idaho is home to more than 462,000 Church members in 1,181 congregations and 132 stakes. Seven stakes in the Mini-Cassia area are in the temple district.

Burley Idaho Temple

Address: 40 S. 150 East, Burley, Idaho 83318

Announced: April 4, 2021, by President Russell M. Nelson

Groundbreaking: June 4, 2022, presided over by Elder Brent H. Nielson of the Presidency of the Seventy

Public open house: Nov. 6 through Nov. 22, 2025, excluding Sundays

Dedicated: Jan. 11, 2026, by President Dallin H. Oaks

Property size: 10.12 acres

Building size: 45,300 square feet

Building height: 172 feet (including the spire)

Temple district: 8 stakes in Idaho’s Cassia and Minidoka counties