CASPER, Wyoming — Casper, Wyoming, is part of a region that played a unique role in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Between 1847 and 1868, the city — along with central Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and the Lakota Nation territory — was a thoroughfare for more than 60,000 Latter-day Saint pioneers on their overland trek to Salt Lake City.
Most Saints came across the plains without severe incident, but the handcart companies of 1856 suffered starvation, exposure, death and other ordeals. A significant event was the 1856 Sweetwater River rescue, in which young men carried desperate pioneers across the freezing water.
One of those young men was David Patten Kimball, great-grandfather of Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
“My grandfather, Crozier Kimball, explained to me that one of the reasons these young men were heroic was because they were following the prophet,” said Elder Cook. “He taught me that following the counsel of the prophet in our own day would be equally heroic.”
Now, Latter-day Saints in Casper will participate in that kind of heroism by rescuing their ancestors through temple work.
On Sunday, Nov. 24, Elder Cook dedicated the Casper Wyoming Temple in a single 10 a.m. session broadcast to all units within the Casper temple district. It is the Church’s 201st dedicated and operating temple.
“Here in mortality, we have the privilege of being the congregation of the righteous to find our ancestors and, by proxy, perform sacred ordinances for those who are in spirit prison,” Elder Cook said ahead of the dedication. “As we do so, we do for them what they cannot do for themselves.”
Serving 15,000 Latter-day Saints in nearly 50 congregations within its district, the Casper Wyoming Temple is the state’s second dedicated and operating house of the Lord, following the Star Valley Wyoming Temple, which was dedicated in 2016. The Cody Wyoming Temple, which was announced in 2021, held its groundbreaking ceremony on Sept. 27, 2024.
Elder Cook was accompanied by his wife, Sister Mary Cook; Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé and his wife, Sister Valérie Caussé; Elder Ricardo P. Giménez, a General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the North America Central Area, and his wife, Sister Catherine Giménez; Elder James R. Rasband, a General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director of the Temple Department, and his wife, Sister Mary Rasband.
The importance of ordinances and covenants
Elder Cook said there are great blessings for those who engage in the work of redeeming the dead, particularly in regard to a person’s own ancestors.
“I believe that the youth of the Church will have greater protection from the adversary if they immerse themselves in searching for their ancestors, preparing their names for the sacred vicarious ordinances available in the temple and then go to the temple to stand as proxy for them to receive the ordinances of baptism and gift of the Holy Ghost, or act as a witness,” Elder Cook said.
The temple’s primary blessings are the ordinances of exaltation, which require the making and keeping of sacred covenants, he continued. With the exception of baptism and confirmation, these ordinances are performed in the temple for the living, and all ordinances for the dead are performed in the temple.
“We organize stakes, wards, quorums, Church organizations, missions [and so forth] in our chapels and other buildings,” Elder Cook said. “The Lord organizes eternal families only in temples.”
He continued that the house of the Lord is also a place of thanksgiving, refuge, instruction and understanding — a place of tranquility and peace in a world that is literally in commotion.
Elder Cook recalled a time of his life in which he’d leave the busy, workaday world in San Francisco and enter the Oakland California Temple. There, he experienced an “overwhelming” feeling of love and peace and a sense that he was closer to God and His purposes. “It is wonderful to leave the cares of the world behind in this sacred setting.”
While the temple’s saving ordinances are Elder Cook’s primary focus, a “significant” part of his beautiful feelings about the temple come from the equality and unity experienced there. All are dressed in white, he said; and all — regardless of wealth, rank or educational attainment — participate in the same ordinances, make the same covenants and receive the same eternal priesthood blessings.
“Fulfilling divinely appointed responsibilities — based on righteousness, unity and equality before the Lord — brings personal happiness and peace in this world and prepares us for eternal life in the world to come. It prepares us to meet God,” Elder Cook said.
Shorter travel times
The new temple will ease the long journeys that local Latter-day Saints previously took to enjoy temple worship.
Before the Casper temple’s dedication, many members of the Rapid City South Dakota Stake traveled north to the Bismarck North Dakota Temple. Bismarck is about five hours by car from Rapid City, and North Dakota winters can be rougher than Wyoming. Casper is about four hours by car from Rapid City.
Rapid City South Dakota Stake President M. Troy Nesbit said having a closer temple will be a blessing for many members.
“Casper is more climatewise like us, and so there’ll probably be many more opportunities from a weather standpoint to go in the winter,” he said.
The large Rapid City stake has 15 units, the southernmost of which will now have a much closer drive to Casper than to Nebraska or Colorado.
Casper Wyoming East Stake President Steven D. Higginson said that between the two Casper stakes, 61 people were currently serving as temple workers in the Fort Collins Colorado Temple. Now, more than 100 members of his stake alone have been interviewed by their bishops to be temple workers.
“Not only is it going to be wonderful to be close to a temple to do ancestral work, but so many more of our members will have the opportunity to serve inside the temple as temple workers,” he said. “The blessings will be just as important for those who did not have that opportunity before.”
‘I have never felt so safe in my life’
Even before the temple’s dedication, however, blessings were abundant. Steve and Diana Gleason — who served as co-coordinators of the open house and dedication committee — witnessed some of these blessings while leading invited guests on open house tours.
Diana Gleason said hearts were touched and people left the temple with a peace they didn’t have before the tour.
During one tour, as guests left the celestial room, a woman took Diana Gleason by the arm and said, “I have never felt so safe in my life.”
Others talked about feeling peaceful or quiet, or said the colors were calming. “But to feel safe is a very powerful word, and it is a very powerful place,” Diana Gleason said. “[This woman] was wrapped in Heavenly Father’s arms in that room, and she felt it.”
A young woman who’s had many challenges said she felt her grandmother’s presence in the celestial room. “She said, ‘I know she was right there with me,’” Diana Gleason recalled. “Things like that change people’s lives. She knew that somebody loved her in that building.”
Steve Gleason said during the temple’s construction, people in the community driving by became curious about it. And after the open house, “they have a whole different perspective of our people, of that building and the purpose that they were taught. They will remember as they drive by, ‘I got to go in there, and it felt good.’”
Beth Worthen, a longtime Casper resident and chair of the temple open house committee, also shared the community’s warm reception to the temple. She’s spoken with locals, civic leaders, business leaders and others who feel that the temple brings peace to the community.
“It’s our responsibility to keep talking about the temple and the feelings that it gives us and the transformational power that it holds, so that people in our community are continually reminded of that and see how it can fit into their lives,” she said.
Blessings and miracles
Local Latter-day Saints haven’t just been blessed by the new house of the Lord — some have seen miracles because of it, like when Worthen said it didn’t rain during the temple’s groundbreaking ceremony just long enough for the proceedings to finish.
Others have seen miracles in more tangible, personal ways.
For instance, many members of the Casper Wyoming Stake remember when young Leland Hepworth would bear testimony about the house of the Lord.
“I would always say that I want there to be a temple in Casper someday, or ‘I know that there is going to be a temple here,’” he said, even when he was as young as 3 years old.
After serving a full-time mission in Argentina, Hepworth began doing family history work and performed temple ordinances for his ancestors, driving to the Billings Montana Temple and later the Fort Collins Colorado Temple.
When the Casper Wyoming Temple was announced, his childhood dream came true — and with it came Hepworth’s eternal companion.
Stephanie San Diego Hepworth, who works for a construction company that helps build temples, was assigned to move to Casper and needed a place to stay.
When Leland Hepworth heard about it, he felt strongly he should rent his new house to her — which is close to the temple — and move back in with his parents.
Soon the two were attending church, institute and young single adult activities together, and his parents often fed her dinner.
“They took care of me,” Stephanie Hepworth said. “It became almost like a nightly routine. I would see Leland basically every night.”
Before long, they began dating and fell in love.
The couple was married civilly on April 22, 2023. The dedication, originally scheduled for June, was delayed until Nov. 24. The silver lining, however, is that more family members have time off for the Thanksgiving holiday and can be together before their new sealing date on Saturday, Nov. 30 — one of the first, if not the first, live sealings in the new house of the Lord.
Stephanie Hepworth grew up in several different cities around the world. She remembers being sealed to her parents in the Philippines when she was young — wearing white and seeing the two sets of mirrors in the sealing room that symbolize eternity.
Later, as a teenager, she traveled to the Frankfurt Germany Temple and loved being in the house of the Lord again.
She told herself if she ever lived near a temple, she would go as often as she could, which she did while living in Salt Lake City. “I never got tired of it. I can go every single time and feel the same feeling over and over again and have this connection to my Heavenly Father.”
Now, days before being sealed to her husband, she’s thinking of how their future children will be born into the covenant.
“I know I am going to have such a wonderful feeling … to not just be sealed to my family but to be sealed to my spouse,” she said.
About the Casper Wyoming Temple
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Casper, Wyoming, during the April 2021 general conference, one of the 20 new temple locations he identified.
The temple site was released in June 2021, with plans calling for a single-story edifice of approximately 10,000 square feet. The temple grounds are a 9.5-acre parcel at the intersection of Wyoming Boulevard and Eagle Drive in Casper.
An exterior rendering of the temple was released on Sept. 9, 2021, along with the groundbreaking date announcement.
Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, a General Authority Seventy who was then president of the Church’s North America Central Area, presided at the Oct. 9, 2021, groundbreaking.
The temple’s open house period began with a media day on Aug. 26, 2024. Representing the Church at the Casper temple media day were Elder Randall K. Bennett, a General Authority Seventy and president of the North America Central Area; Elder James R. Rasband, a General Authority Seventy and assistant executive director of the Temple Department; and President Camille N. Johnson, Relief Society general president. They were joined by local leaders.
Coinciding with media day, the Church released interior and exterior photographs of the temple. The images and the dedication updates were first published on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Following media day, invited guests toured the temple Aug. 27-28, prior to the temple’s open house that ran from Aug. 29 through Sept. 14.
The Casper temple features a steel-framed modular structure, built similar to the modular construction first used by the Church with its Helena Montana Temple, which was dedicated in June 2023.
The interior design motifs are based on stylized versions of the Indian paintbrush — Wyoming’s state flower — and the sagebrush, both native to Casper and the surrounding area. Art-glass windows and interior decorative painting feature local flora, including the Indian paintbrush, and geometric Native American patterns.
Casper Wyoming Temple
Location: 3011 Independence Court, Casper, Wyoming 82604
Announced: April 4, 2021, by President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church
Groundbreaking: Oct. 9, 2021, presided over by Elder S. Gifford Nielsen, a General Authority Seventy and then president of the North America Central Area
Public open house: Aug. 29-Sept. 14, 2024, excluding Sundays
Dedicated: Nov. 24, 2024, by Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
Property size: 9.52 acres
Building size: 9,950 square feet
Building height: 97 feet, 6 inches, including the spire
