MESA, Ariz. — In this 75th anniversary year of the Mesa Arizona Temple, visitors gaze at more than 600,000 Christmas lights that illuminate the grounds in spectacular displays, but what they feel here may touch them more than what they actually see.

Photo by Scott P. Adair

Some 600,000 lights attract and captivate visitors at Mesa Arizona Temple.

In October 1927, as President Heber J. Grant dedicated the temple, he prayed not only for the sacred edifice, but also for the ground on which it stands and that all who would come, whether members of the Church or not, would "feel the sweet and peaceful influence of this blessed and hallowed spot."

Today that prayer is still being answered as those who come to the temple grounds do, indeed, feel that sweet and peaceful influence.

"People feel of the spirit here," said Elder Justin Chandler, a full-time missionary from Rexburg, Idaho, who welcomed visitors to the temple grounds and answered questions about the Church. "And they are touched by that."

Another missionary, Elder Cody Larsen from South Jordan, Utah, has served two years as a host during the holiday season and has heard many visitors express those feelings. "Some say, 'I feel something different' or 'I feel a peaceful feeling.' However they express it, they know that there's a special feeling here," he said. "I know I feel it."

Brian Steele of Los Angeles, Calif., who had just come from shopping at a mall during the weekend after Thanksgiving, visited the temple Christmas lights for the first time. "It was total chaos there," he said. "It's ultimate tranquility here."

Others strolling the grounds and looking at the lights, which illuminate trees, bushes, fences and the reflecting pool, also seem to sense that sacred feeling as most talk in hushed tones and no one seems to be in any hurry to leave.

Elder David Grant, director of the temple visitors center, said he hears comments about feeling the spirit here not only at Christmastime but "every day of the year, even when it's 117 degrees."

He talks nightly to those who find their way into the visitors center after viewing the lights and notices that their hearts are touched as they ask for more information about the Church.

"It's quite phenomenal," he said. One night nearly 50 individuals or families asked for missionaries to teach them.

"Christmas is about families and most of the visitors come here with their own families," said Elder Chandler. Babies bundled up in coats and blankets are pushed in strollers or cradled in arms, children gazing in wonder walk at the side of parents, grandparents join their children and grandchildren, out-of-town relatives are included and young couples walk hand-in-hand. Many stop and pose for photographs in front of the shallow pond that reflects the image of the temple.

"They come as families to partake of the Christmas spirit and the spirit of the temple," he said. "We tell them that their family can be eternal if Jesus Christ is a part of it."