POWELL (WNE) — The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced plans to build a temple in Cody.
In a Sunday address, Church President Russell Nelson named Cody as one of 13 places across the globe where the church plans to construct new temples. Other locations include cities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bolivia, the Philippines and Rexburg, Idaho.
“I’m stunned and just so grateful that the Prophet [Nelson] felt like we needed a temple in Cody,” Andrew Jacobsen, the president of the Cody Wyoming Stake, told The Church News. “To have a temple here will be a blessing for the entire Big Horn Basin.”
A temple differs from a church, where LDS members regularly gather and host various events that are open to the public. In contrast, temples are special places of worship that are closed to the general public, being reserved for faithful members of the church to participate in ceremonies that include marriages and proxy baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors.
Currently, members of the Cody stake — which includes congregations in Powell, Cody, Meeteetse, Burlington and Otto — travel to the temple in Billings, Montana; members of the Lovell stake do the same.
Before the Billings temple opened in 1999, the closest site for local LDS members was in Idaho Falls, Idaho.
The church opened its first temple in Wyoming in Star Valley in 2016. Nelson announced in April that the state’s second temple would be constructed in Casper, and a groundbreaking for that roughly 10,000-square-foot building is set for Saturday.
