About the Utah Valley Ward

Deaf Latter-day Saints have formally met in Utah Valley for over sixty years.

Deaf Latter-day Saints have met together in Utah County since the late 1960s; the first Provo Deaf Branch met in the old seminary building on 100 South and 300 West and was formally organized in 1967 with Joe Brandenburg, Jr. as its first group leader. In 1980, the Provo 45th Deaf Branch was announced and moved to the newly created Provo South Stake. On 4 August 1996, Provo South Stake President Julian Raulston announced the conversion of the Utah Valley Deaf Branch to the Utah Valley Deaf Ward, and Lee Shepherd (1926–2012) was called as its first bishop.

The Lehi 44th (Deaf) Branch was formed when the Utah Valley Deaf Ward was split on 19 July 2009. Today, The Lehi 44th Ward (Sign Language) serves Deaf members in the northern half of Utah County, from Bluffdale to American Fork.

The Utah Valley Ward is part of the Provo Utah South Stake, which not only serves Deaf church members from Santaquin to Pleasant Grove, but also church members in five English-speaking, a Haitian Creole-speaking, two Spanish-speaking, and a congregation of multiple Native American and Polynesian languages, cultures, and tribes.