Kansas City Missouri Mormon Temple
April 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Temples in America
On 4 October 2008 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced the construction of a new temple in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. The temple will be located southwest of the intersection of I-435 and Shoal Creek Parkway. The site is in a beautiful mixed development owned by the Church in northeast Kansas City, just west of the Liberty Jail Historic Site. The temple is expected to be similar in design to the recently dedicated Twin Falls Idaho Temple and to be completed in about three years.
In the early years of the Church, Mormons had attempted to build two temples in Missouri, one in Far West and one in Independence. Both attempts were thwarted by mob violence against the Mormons.
Mormons had also settled in Kansas, but they left when the Church relocated its headquarters to Nauvoo, Illinois, and then to Salt Lake City, Utah. Church members are now found in every major city in the Midwest. Kansas City’s first stake was established in 1956. Today there are approximately 100,000 members in Missouri and Kansas organized into 21 stakes where the Church has one operating temple in St. Louis, Missouri.
Updates
The Kansas City Missouri Mormon Temple sits on just over eight acres and is 32,000 square feet. The groundbreaking and site dedication were held on 8 May 2010 and conducted by Ronald A. Rasband of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The public was invited to visit the temple during an open house from Saturday, 7 April 2012, until Saturday, 21 April 2012, excluding Sundays. During the open house, there is no charge to tour the temple, but tickets could be obtained from kansascitymormontemple.org. The temple was scheduled to be formally dedicated on Sunday, 6 May 2012, in three sessions. The dedicatory sessions are broadcast to congregations of the Church within the temple district. Those in the temple district who witness the dedicatory sessions via closed circuit television do so in selected meetinghouses, and through an interview with their bishop or one of his counselors to determine their worthiness, present a conditional recommend to do so.
In conjunction with the dedication of the temple, a cultural celebration featuring music and dance was scheduled for Saturday, 5 May 2012, and held at the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
Elder William Walker of the Seventy (General Authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ) led VIP visitors on a tour of the temple, including the Governors of both Missouri and Kansas. These governors issued special proclamations of congratulations on the building of the temple. The governor of Missouri also admitted to the mistreatment of Mormons as they were oppressed and driven out in 1838-1839 and called the dedication of the Kansas City Missouri Temple a time for healing in the state. He offered his congratulations and welcome to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be carried to the First Presidency of the Church in Salt Lake City by Elder Walker.
Click here to read the proclamations from the governors of Kansas and Missouri.
An Episcopal Priest attended the open house. Click here to read her impressions.
The address of the Kansas City Missouri Temple is 7001 Searcy Creek Parkway, Kansas City, Missouri, United States.
