The LDS temple endowment, explained

A dedicated temple is open only to members of the Church who hold a current temple recommend: a small card, shown at the front desk, that says the member has been interviewed and found ready.¹²

Before their own endowment, a member is interviewed by their bishop and then their stake president. The questions are published in the Church’s General Handbook. They ask about faith in God and Jesus Christ, support for Church leaders, the law of chastity, honesty, family life, the Word of Wisdom and tithing: “Are you a full-tithe payer?”, meaning a tenth of one’s income.²³

Members are usually endowed when they are at least 18, finished with high school and a year past their confirmation, or when they are preparing for a mission or a temple marriage. Younger members, from the year they turn 12, can hold a recommend to do baptisms for the dead, but they are not endowed.⁴⁵

Most congregations offer a temple preparation class. The Church’s course and booklet explain what the covenants are for, but not what is said and done in the ceremony, which members are asked not to discuss outside the temple.⁶⁷⁴

Before the first endowment, each person receives the initiatory ordinances “privately and individually,” from a temple worker of the same gender. The Church describes them as a symbolic washing and anointing, plus instruction on wearing the temple garment.¹²

A little water, then a little olive oil, is applied to the head. With hands on the person’s head, the worker pronounces blessings on each part of the body in turn. The Church’s booklet calls these ordinances “mostly symbolic in nature,” with promises of blessings now and in the future.³⁴⁵

This part has changed more than any other. In Nauvoo in the 1840s, people were washed in a tub and anointed with oil poured from a horn. Later the washing became symbolic, and people wore a “shield,” a white poncho-like covering. Since January 2005 they put on the garment first, wear a shield closed at the sides over it, and only the head is touched.⁵⁶⁴

The initiatory ends with the person being clothed in the temple garment: white underclothing in two pieces, a top and a bottom, worn under everyday clothes.¹²

In the Church’s words, the garment “reminds us of the veil in the temple, and that veil is symbolic of Jesus Christ.” Endowed members wear it day and night for the rest of their lives, and don’t alter it to suit fashions.³⁴

It carries four small marks, sewn or printed, that match marks on the veil at the end of the endowment. Two of them, a square and a compass, were adapted from Freemasonry.⁵⁶

The design changes from time to time. The original ankle-and-wrist garment was shortened in 1923, and since 2024 redesigned garments, including sleeveless options, have rolled out worldwide.⁷⁸⁹¹⁰

During the initiatory, each person is given a new name, a key word used later in the endowment. Members keep it to themselves, except that a wife’s new name is made known to her husband.¹

Latter-day Saint scripture speaks of a new name, written on a white stone, given to those who enter the celestial kingdom (Doctrine and Covenants 130:11). Beyond that, the Church’s published material says little about it.²

The presentation is a story. The Church summarizes its subjects as the Creation, the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Apostasy and the Restoration.¹

Its characters include Elohim (God the Father), Jehovah (Jesus Christ before his birth), Michael, who becomes Adam, and Eve, along with Lucifer, who tempts them. Since 2023 it also shows the War in Heaven. Adam and Eve eat the fruit and must leave the garden.²³⁴

Part of the ceremonial clothing is a green apron, a reminder of the fig leaves Adam and Eve sewed together in Genesis. The chart shows it put on here, in the garden.⁵²

The chart places the first two covenants, obedience and sacrifice, in the garden. Since January 2019, men and women make the same covenants, each directly with God.⁶

Adam and Eve enter the “lone and dreary world,” the world of ordinary life, which the ceremony calls the telestial world. There they seek further light, and Peter, James and John appear as messengers sent to teach them.¹²³

Over their white clothes, participants wear ceremonial clothing: a robe over one shoulder, a sash, the green apron, and a cap for men or a veil for women. Everything is white except the apron. The chart shows the pieces put on in stages as the story goes; since 2023, participants stay seated for most of the session and no longer stop to adjust their clothing.⁴⁵⁶³

The clothing was redesigned in 2020 to be “more simple, comfortable, and cost-effective.” The chart places the law of the gospel in this part of the story.⁷

The story moves up to the “terrestrial” world, a higher, brighter stage. In most temples built since 2002 this part has its own room. On the chart, participants move the robe from the left shoulder to the right at this point.¹²

The chart places the laws of chastity and consecration here, the last two covenants.

Near the end, some participants are invited to stand in a circle around an altar, in their ceremonial clothing. Joseph Smith called this “the true order of prayer.”¹²

The circle makes the signs learned earlier. Then one person at the altar offers a prayer a phrase at a time, and the circle repeats each phrase. The names on the temple’s prayer roll, people members have asked to be prayed for, are included; since 2020 names can be sent in online.¹²³

Since 1978, prayer circles happen only in temples, as part of the endowment.¹

The session ends at the veil, a white curtain across the room; the chart notes it bears the same marks as the garment. On the other side is the celestial room.¹

One at a time, participants come to the veil. A temple worker behind it represents the Lord. The participant gives the tokens and names learned in the session, with a worker beside them to help, and is then brought through. The Church describes this as symbolically returning “to the Lord’s presence.”¹²³

Until 1990 this included an embrace at the veil called the “five points of fellowship.”⁴⁵

The celestial room stands for heaven. No ceremonies happen there; the Church calls it “a place of quiet peace, prayer, and reflection.”¹²

Family and friends who came to the session often sit with someone here after their first endowment, before everyone changes back into their own clothes.³

The Church doesn’t discuss this ordinance publicly, so what follows comes from historians. Today it is given privately to a small number of married couples chosen by the Church’s top leaders. Church leaders have described it as having one’s “calling and election made sure.”¹²

In historians’ accounts, an officiator washes the husband’s feet, then anoints him a king and priest and his wife a queen and priestess. Later, in private, the wife washes and anoints her husband’s feet and gives him a blessing.¹²

It was given regularly from the 1840s to the 1920s (about 15,000 times for living people by 1941) and has been far rarer since the 1920s.¹²