The North Visitors’ Center

By Chad E. Phares

Church Magazines

Come with us for a look at an important place on Temple Square.

Kaemin and Ikani (“Kolby”) I. already knew a lot about prophets. But visiting the North Visitors’ Center on Temple Square helped them see in a new way how prophets testify of Jesus Christ.

That day Kolby and Kaemin got to see life-size replicas of prophets from the scriptures. They learned that even though prophets live at different times, all prophets testify that Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Son of God.

Isaiah was an Old Testament prophet who lived before Jesus was born. He told about Jesus’s birth and about His role as our Savior. Isaiah wrote, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: … and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

Mormon lived about 400 years after Jesus. He put together the writings of many Book of Mormon prophets in the golden plates. He also added some of his own writings. Mormon taught that we should “believe in Jesus Christ, that He is the Son of God” (Mormon 7:5). He gave the record to his son Moroni, who buried the golden plates.

After Moroni died, there were no prophets on the earth for hundreds of years. In 1823 the angel Moroni showed Joseph Smith where he could find the golden plates. Joseph translated these plates by the power of God and printed the writings as the Book of Mormon. The Bible is one testament of Jesus Christ; the Book of Mormon is another.

Starting with Joseph Smith, we have had 16 Presidents of the Church. They are prophets who have been called of God to teach us about Jesus Christ. Our prophet today is President Thomas S. Monson.

After learning what prophets taught of Christ, Kolby and Kaemin walked up a spiral ramp to the top of the visitors’ center. There they saw a large statue of Jesus called the Christus. They listened to a recording of Jesus’s teachings. The things that the prophets taught about Jesus are the same things Jesus taught about Himself.

The Christus Statue and the Rotunda

The Christus statue is on the second floor of the North Visitors’ Center in a rotunda. A rotunda is a round room covered by a dome.
The original Christus statue was created by Bertel Thorvaldsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, in the 1800s.
The Christus statue on Temple Square is carved of white marble from Italy.
The rotunda’s walls are painted with a mural of space. Behind the statue of the Savior is a painting of the earth. The North Star is directly over His head. Star constellations like the Big and Little Dippers are also included in the mural.
The stars in the rotunda show how the sky looked in the Northern Hemisphere at midnight on April 6, 1830. That is the date The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized (see D&C 20).
The dome ceiling is 46 feet (14 m) above the floor. The mural is 166 feet (51 m) long. More than 150 gallons (568 l) of paint were used to create the mural.

Illustrations of icons and map by Dilleen Marsh; photographs by Christina Smith, except as noted; photographs of golden plates replica and North Visitors’ Center by Jed Clark; inset: photograph of Christus by Robert Casey