Lindon • Nearly six years after it was announced, the newest Utah temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens to the public this week.

The Lindon Temple will allow tours Thursday through April 11, save for Sundays and the faith’s April 4-5 General Conference weekend.

The twin-spired, three-story, 83,000-square-foot edifice is the second Latter-day Saint temple with two baptismal fonts. The dual fonts mirror each other on the same floor and will allow the temple to double the number of proxy baptisms members perform for their deceased ancestors.

The only operating temple with a second baptistry is Utah’s Syracuse Temple. Besides the Lindon Temple, the renovated Salt Lake Temple and the planned Smithfield Temple will also have two baptistries.

General authority Seventy James R. Rasband, assistant executive director of the church’s Temple Department, said during a Monday media tour that he anticipates the additional font being an asset especially for Latter-day Saint youths in and around Lindon “because that’s where they usually participate in temple worship.”

Isabella Bezzant, a Pleasant Grove high school student, said she was grateful for the additional font in the Lindon Temple.

Bezzant had been attending the Mount Timpanogos Temple in American Fork for years and said it proved challenging to schedule time in the baptistry.

“The only appointments you could get there were like 4 a.m.,” she said. “It was crazy, especially because it is mostly youth (in the baptismal fonts). I feel like two fonts are absolutely necessary.”

In addition to the Lindon Temple’s two fonts and mountainous setting, church designers made sure to include a signature piece from the city throughout the building.

“You’ll see that in the design of all of our temples. We try to take some account of the area in which that temple is built. And so all throughout the world, the design motif will reflect something of that area,” Rasband said. “Here in Lindon, you have the beautiful linden tree and the linden flower. You’ll see that design as you go through.”

Originally known as Stringtown, Lindon was named after a prominent linden tree near the east side of State Street. Now in the city’s namesake temple, branches, flowers and buds from that tree are reflected on the stained-glass windows and interior engravings of the building.

Dana Daly, a member of the open house committee who lives near the temple, said the building embodies the faith of many area families.

“It’s just in the middle of a residential area, and somehow that seems like it just kind of fits where the Lindon families are,” Daly said. “The center of our faith is the temple, and if it’s surrounded by families, to me, that just really stands out.”

Once it is dedicated on May 3, the Lindon Temple will become the church’s 216th operating temple in the world.

Utah is home to 32 existing or planned Latter-day Saint temples.

Unlike the church’s more common meetinghouses, temples are places where devout Latter-day Saints participate in their highest religious rites such as eternal marriage.

Note to readers • Dylan Eubank is a Report for America corps member covering faith in Utah County for The Salt Lake Tribune.