Pass through Utah with a Utah Temples Passport Tour Guide

There are 13 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Temples in the state of Utah.

Herriman resident Kristen Sokol, 30, recently launched The Utah Temples Passport Tour Guide at Seagull Book at The District in South Jordan.

With this new book, one can travel from St. George to Logan, viewing these grand buildings and getting a stamp in their Utah Temple Passport to mark the journey.

"The book looks just like a regular United States Passport," Sokol said. "Each temple in Utah has a page spread with its own original seal. There is also a 150-word description of each temple with interesting facts."

The description for each temple includes the size, exterior finish and dedication date for each building. Sokol, with the help of her husband, Steve, spent months researching the temples using the Church News, The Church Almanac and the expertise of Richard O. Cowan, a Brigham Young University professor of religion.

"I was struck by the blood, sweat and tears involved in the construction of these temples," Kristin Sokol said. "I wept while sitting at my kitchen table as I read about the sacrifices that so many early saints made for the construction."

Sokol originally got the idea for the passport while serving an LDS mission in New York in 2003 and the idea returned to her end of last May during a conversation with her husband. One year later, she was a published author at her very own book signing.

"I have a lot of ideas but I generally never do anything with them," Sokol said. "This one I just knew I had to do. There was a lady at the signing who happened to be there right as the event was ending. She said that she had chills and was so excited to have a copy herself and to give them away."

Sokol worked very closely on the passport with her friend and graphic design artist, Curtis Moore. "I gave him some descriptions of what it looked like in my head and he took my imagery and produced some incredible designs almost immediately," she said. "His designs were exactly what I had wanted, only better. I am very lucky that I had Curtis to work with; otherwise this would have been dead in the water. It has done so well because it looks so good. We got our publishing contract on our first try."

Moore created an individual seal for each of temple, trying to incorporate a theme that went along with the building or its location. "For the Oquirrh Mountain Temple I used 13 stars because it is the 13th temple," Moore said. "Making the seals was the most fun for me. The finished product turned out to be exactly as I made it. This is one of the few publications where they didn't need to make a lot of changes before it could be published."

As more Utah temples are being constructed in Payson, Brigham City and a rebuild in Ogden, Sokol and Moore plan to release new editions of the passport in order to keep it current.

Sokol grew up in Riverton and graduated from Bingham High School. She attended Weber State College where she studied public relations. It was in college that she discovered her knack for writing. She has a blog that she enjoys writing and she is also a writer for the South Valley Journal. Sokol and her husband Steve have two daughters: Alyssa, 4, and Sunny, 2.

Caption: The Utah Temples Passport Tour Guide gives a person traveling through Utah the opportunity to have a detailed look at the history of each Temple. Pictured from left, Moore and Sokol signing their publishing contract with Cedar Fort.