Tucson Arizona Temple

Temple 112

February 6, 2020

Tucson, Arizona

      Ivy and I are addicted to traveling, and so we try to go on a trip as often as possible. With this next trip we found some cheap flights, really cheap flights, and to a place we had never been that also had a temple. So we booked the flights and planned the trip, with about a week to prepare.

The flights were from Provo to Tucson, each round trip ticket costing about $90. We flew to Tucson and went to get our rental car. We booked the cheapest car we could, a small economy car, but apparently they ran out of those. So we got our car keys and went and found our car; a 2020, bright red Chevy Camaro with 600 miles! We didn’t want something that would stand out so much, but it was still fun to drive and we had no other choice.

We first went to the Mission San Xavier south of Tucson. It was an old historical building, which was founded in 1692 and built in 1783, making it the oldest European building in Arizona. We then drove through Tucson, which was larger and busier than I expected, and made it to the Temple. There wasn’t anything in Tucson that we found worth seeing so we didn’t stop in the city but went straight to the Temple. 

The Tucson Temple is definitely one of a kind. To meet with building codes and regulations the first Temple plans were denied and the Church had to come up with new plans. The style the Temple is now, with a blueish domed roof with a spire, is based off a cathedral in Florence Italy. It’s unique but beautiful and we were so excited to see it! In each corner of the Temple there were motifs of golden leaves which shone brilliantly as the sun was going down. We flew our drone around the Temple and got some beautiful shots of the Temple with mountains in the background. The mountains are covered with massive saguaro cacti and were a perfect background to the Temple. And, as expected, the grounds of the Temple were decorated with these cacti and other desert plants which were pretty as some of them were blossoming. We took a lot of photos of the Temple from every angle and then went into the Temple. 

The inside of the Temple was just as beautiful, with African mahogany wood throughout the entire Temple, along with paintings of landscapes throughout Arizona. It’s a new Temple, built in 2017, so it felt new and was a great experience. We did a session, enjoyed our time in the celestial room, and then went back outside into the warm weather. 

After the Temple we went and stayed at an Airbnb in a ladies house. In the morning we then drove east, making a long drive out to White Sands National Park, about five hours away. We ran around on the white sand, got some pictures, had a picnic, and then drove to El Paso. We drove to a lookout over El Paso and watched the sunset as we looked over the two cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. It was crazy to see how the border split the two cities and made each city so different. On one side of the river were brightly colored concrete, condensed, poor homes, and on the other were the normal lumber-built, spaced out homes of America. We looked over Ciudad Juarez and saw the Temple out in the middle of all the buildings, and couldn’t wait to go the next day.