Correction: The temple in Bentonville, Arkansas was built in 2023. An earlier version of this story had the wrong year.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Missouri will be build its third temple in Missouri at the southern tip of Springfield, just west of Highway 65, near Mercy Orthopedic Hospital.
It will be across the street from the Lexington Square residential subdivision and the River Bluff Fellowship church. The address is 2720 East Farm Road 188.
The other two temples in Missouri are in St. Louis, the structure was built in 1997, and in Kansas City, built in 2012.
The church also has a temple in Bentonville, Arkansas, 124 miles from Springfield, built in 2023.
Donna McGee, 82, couldn't be happier to see a temple in Springfield.
‘Churches' and ‘temples' are two different things
“We have waited a long time,” she said Tuesday, June 25. “We hoped and prayed that we could get one.”
She lives in southern Springfield and is a lifetime resident of Springfield and a lifetime church member.
The fact a temple will be built in Springfield is not the news. It was announced in April 2023 by Church President Russell M. Nelson; Springfield was one of 15 worldwide locations revealed.
It's the exact location in Springfield revealed this week that is the news.
It should be noted, a “temple” is not a “church” in the faith.
A church, also called a “meeting house,” is where weekly Sunday worship is held.
Churches fall into units called “wards” or “branches.” Temples are more elaborate structures where assorted church rites and rituals are done. Temples also are open to members seeking quiet and meditation.
Only church members in good standing can enter a temple.
At a temple, McGee said, “We can do work for people who already died.”
There is a practice in the church called “baptism for the dead.” Members believe that people who die without learning about the restored Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gospel can be baptized by proxy in a temple ceremony, which involves prayers and immersion.
This gives the deceased a chance to become a church member and join their families in the afterlife.
‘You can sit, relax, concentrate or pray'
The new temple will be about four miles from McGee's home.
“It is a real blessing for me,” she said. “It is much easier than having to get in the car and go that far. It is very, very quiet when you are in a temple. You can sit, relax, concentrate or pray.”
When McGee was married Oct. 20, 1961, there were only 12 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints temples in the world.
McGee and her husband Sammy could have made a long trip to a temple in Utah, Idaho or Arizona. But they didn't. They waited for better timing.
Instead, they were married in their local church, or meeting house, and waited until 1965 to go to a temple.
Rather than drive to Salt Lake City, as many of their friends did, they chose the temple in Los Angeles simply because they wanted to see Los Angeles.
Their marriage was sealed for eternity in the 1965 temple ceremony in Los Angeles, she said. Their son was also “sealed” to them at the same time.
“It is not ‘until death do us part,'” she said. “It is called ‘sealed for time and eternity.'”
Members of the faith believe they can be united as a family for eternity.
Donna and Sammy would have two more sons. Sammy died in 2018.
Temple construction booming
The church keeps a chronology of its temples.
There are 195 dedicated temples in operation around the world. The first one on this list is the temple in St. George, Utah, dedicated in 1887.
The temple in Salt Lake City, where the church has its headquarters, was the fourth temple dedicated. That was in 1893.
The church also lists five “Temples of the Restoration,” which includes, for example, the Nauvoo Temple in Illinois, which was destroyed by a fire set deliberately by an arsonist in October 1848. Nauvoo is on the Mississippi River.
The church lists another 50 temples under construction worldwide, and another 105 temples, including the one in Springfield, that the church has announced plans to build.
The announcement of the location of the Springfield temple did not come with a timetable for construction or an artistic rendering of what it will look like.
The little bit known is that it will be a single-story temple of approximately 29,000 square feet.
According to a church website:
“The Church pays for the costs without a mortgage or other financing. Church leaders want Latter-day Saints everywhere to have easy access to temples. Temple sites are generally located in areas with enough members (there’s no required number) to warrant construction, or where great distances exist between temples.”
Missouri is home to more than 80,000 Latter-day Saints in nearly 165 congregations, according to the church. In the 1830s, during the early days of the church, Independence, its surrounding counties were important gathering places for Latter-day Saints.
