Wichita will soon be the home of the state’s first temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Members in the state said the building will make it easier for them to practice their faith. Currently, the closest Mormon temples are in Oklahoma City and Kansas City.
Church member Brian Grimmett, who lives in Wichita, said it’s a major development that will have impacts beyond the city.
“Now it's going to be a five-minute drive away,” Grimmett said. “But it also means it's closer for people who live in Great Bend or Hays or all of these places where they were even further still from a temple.”
There are nearly 40,000 members in Kansas, the church estimates. Their history in the state goes back to 1831, when missionaries visited members of the Shawnee and Delaware tribes.
Missionaries visited the state several more times, and church members who volunteered in 1864 for the Mormon Battalion trained at Ft. Leavenworth.
The first stake in Kansas, a group of local church congregations, organized in June 1962.
Grimmett said the church has been working to expand the number of temples, and that speed has been increasing in the past 10 years.
Temples are different from Mormon churches, which serve as places of worship and education.
Temples are the only place where the church performs the most sacred ordinances, like baptism, marriage and covenants.
Russell M. Nelson, church president at the time, announced the intent to build the Wichita Kansas Temple in 2022 as part of a group of 17 new temples.
“It was super exciting when it was first announced, because until it's completed, our closest Temple is in Oklahoma City,” Grimmett said. “While that's not the furthest away, it is like a two-and-a-half-hour drive that we'd have to do. And it's a little bit of a sacrifice.”
Church members are encouraged to visit a temple as often as they can. When a temple is close, they can go once a week. But for Kansas members, the distance means the trip happens once every few months.
Grimmett said when his children were young, that involved preparations like arranging for childcare. It wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world for the family, but it presented a barrier.
“Now, it makes being able to access that holy place that much easier, and so that opens it up for more people to do it more often,” Grimmett said. “There are so many blessings that come from participating in the temple.”
Construction started in 2024 on the project. The building is a single-story, 9,950-square-foot structure. It’s among the smaller temples the church has built, Grimmett said.
In a nod to its home state, sunflowers and wheat stalks adorn the stained glass and interior.
“Like most churches, everything inside is meant to get you to reflect on his creations and the beauty of the earth,” Grimmett said. “So those are some of the things that will be present, both inside and outside of the temple.”
Grimmett expects the temple to open by the end of the year. Once completed, there will be an open house for the community to give people an opportunity to learn about the temple and go inside. Once the temple is dedicated, it will be closed to the public.
For him, Grimmett said the open house is an unique opportunity to share the Mormon faith with the community.
“We're excited for ourselves, but we're also excited to share it with our friends,” Grimmett said. “It's a big part of our life, and it means a lot to us. It's something that's really hard to kind of explain sometimes just in words.”
