David NoyceThe Mormon Land newsletter is The Salt Lake Tribune’s weekly highlight reel of news in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Join us on Patreon to receive ad-free podcast episodes, the full newsletter and access to all of our religion content.
Anniversary celebration
It has been 15 years, but Andrew Rannells can still bring it as the original Elder Price in the Tony Award-winning “Book of Mormon” musical.
Don’t believe it? Well, I believe, especially after hearing him belt out the showstopping “I Believe” on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” last week. (See it and hear it here. He even inserts the name of the church’s current president, Dallin Oaks.)
Rannells, along with his companion, Josh Gad, as Elder Cunningham, will take the stage for select scenes and songs alongside the current cast June 9-14 in celebration of the show’s 15th anniversary year, Playbill reports.
Rannells also appeared in a March 19 performance marking the production’s long run, Playbill notes. And The Daily Beast points out that the hit show’s updated “Spooky Mormon Hell Dream” number now includes a reference to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the lewd but loved production, which premiered on Broadway in 2011, the idealistic Price joyously sings about getting his own planet, while the nerdy Cunningham fondly fibs his way to convert after convert in the jungles of Uganda.
Getting ready for conference
Look for our pre-General Conference special section in this weekend’s print edition of The Tribune, with stories also rolling out next week on sltrib.com.
A kid-friendly temple exhibit
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Patrons enjoy “A Firm Foundation,” a new exhibit at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City that celebrates the 19th-century construction and 21st-century renovation of the Salt Lake Temple, on Saturday, March 14, 2026.
Complete with an earthquake table, stained glass, building blocks and toy cranes, a new hands-on exhibit at the Church History Museum helps kids celebrate the renovated and seismically upgraded Salt Lake Temple.
“Just as the temple foundation was needing to be strengthened,” curator Tiffany Bowles said in a news release, “it’s important for each of us to have a strong spiritual foundation.”
The display, titled “A Firm Foundation,” features a number of artifacts, including the trumpet from the golden Angel Moroni statue that fell during a 2020 earthquake.
The latest ‘Mormon Land’ podcast: Regarding Harry
(Susan Walsh | AP) Senate Democratic leader Sen. Harry Reid, shown in 2016, liked — and was liked by — President Barack Obama.
Republicans may dominate the church’s ranks, but the most powerful Latter-day Saint ever was a true blue Democrat. Learn about Harry Reid, who opposed Mitt Romney’s presidential run, advanced Barack Obama’s agenda, and remained loyal to his party and his faith.
Listen to the podcast.
Around the world
• Nearly three-quarters (72%) of Americans are married to a spouse who shares their faith tradition.
Statistician Ryan Burge notes that U.S. Latter-day Saints, at 81%, eclipse that number, according to a Pew Religious Landscape Study, just behind evangelicals (83%) and Hindus (86%) and above Black Protestants (79%) and Catholics (72%).
• The game plan for the July 5 “Music & the Spoken Word” broadcast — celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — calls for a special guest narrator: The Kansas City Chiefs’ Andy Reid, the three-time Super Bowl champion and Hall of Fame-bound football coach.
“I spent more than a decade just down the road from Independence Hall, where our Founding Fathers put pen to paper on the Declaration of Independence,” Reid, who used to coach the Philadelphia Eagles, said in a news release. “They were the ultimate team — facing adversity, staying the course and building something that has endured for 250 years.”
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid, shown in 2024, will join The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square as guest narrator for a special program on July 5, 2026.
• The church has released an exterior rendering of the Vienna Temple. The steepleless, multistory, 15,300-square-foot building will be Austria’s first Latter-day Saint temple.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Exterior rendering of the Vienna Temple in Austria.
From The Tribune
• A course correction for general education at BYU hits a roadblock.
• A conference that questions if church founder Joseph Smith really was polygamous is causing an uproar.
• The church’s most visible building is once again … visible: The Salt Lake Temple is scaffolding-free.
(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) The south tower crane is dismantled on the Salt Lake Temple construction site on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. The temple is now free of scaffolding.
• Advocate Troy Williams’ secret to advancing gay rights legislation in Latter-day Saint-dominated Utah: find common ground. Listen to the podcast. Read the excerpts.
• An emeritus Brigham Young University professor warns that slapping labels on members threatens to divide the church.
• Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann recounts how his mom saved him, at age 6, from a potential life of crime.
David is a managing editor at The Tribune, where he has worked since 1984. He oversees coverage ranging from local government and west-side issues to growth, development and housing. In addition, he directs religion reporting, co-hosts the award-winning “Mormon Land” podcast and writes the Mormon Land newsletter.