The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced the date of the groundbreaking ceremony for the Teton River Idaho Temple, the second house of the Lord in Rexburg, Idaho.
Also, the First Presidency released an exterior rendering, which provides a first look at the Teton River temple.
Elder Ricardo P. Giménez, a General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the North America Central Area presidency, will preside at the June 1 groundbreaking. Attendance at the site will be by invitation, with additional details on the event to be released as the groundbreaking date draws closer.
The date and rendering were first released Tuesday, Feb. 20, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Planned as a three-story edifice of approximately 130,000 square feet, the temple will be built on a 16.6-acre site west of Second East, between 2000 North (Moody Road) and the North Rexburg exit interchange of Highway 20. The temple site was released on Sept. 19, 2022.
It will be the city’s second house of the Lord, joining the Rexburg Idaho Temple, which was dedicated in 2008. Rexburg is also home to the Church’s Brigham Young University–Idaho.
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced the new temple as “Rexburg North, Idaho” when he included it as one of the 13 new locations identified during October 2021 general conference.
The planned temple carried the Rexburg North name until the First Presidency announced the “Teton River” name change on Aug. 15, 2022, about a month prior to the site’s official release.
Besides the two temples in Rexburg, Idaho, is home to seven other houses of the Lord. Five other dedicated and operating temples are found in Boise, Idaho Falls, Meridian, Pocatello and Twin Falls. Temples are under construction in Burley and Montpelier.
More than 470,000 Latter-day Saints in more than 1,200 congregations reside in the state. Pioneers first arrived in the Idaho Territory in 1855, while Church President Brigham Young asked 26 Latter-day Saints to settle near the Salmon River, a 425-mile-long river that runs through the central area of the present-day state.
