Louisville Kentucky Temple Wiki

Description

The Louisville Kentucky Temple is the 76th operating temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). It is physically located in Pewee Valley, Kentucky with a mailing address of Crestwood, Kentucky. The adjacent communities are suburbs of Louisville.

History

he history of Mormonism in Kentucky goes back to the Church’s earliest days. Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the Church, visited Louisville in 1831 and likely preached there. Another prominent Mormon and future prophet, Wilford Woodruff, served as a missionary in Kentucky in 1835 and 1836. Several small congregations were organized in the state in the 1830s. Most of the early members in Kentucky, when the Church of Jesus Christ was still young, went west with the body of the Saints and the Church had little growth in the state until after World War II. By 1900, there were roughly 1,700 Church members living in Kentucky. In 2009, the Church there had grown to include about 31,000 members.

Announcement

The Louisville Kentucky Temple was announced on March 27, 1999.^[1]“Six more temples announced; total now 108”, Deseret News, 27 March 1999. Retrieved on 28 March 2020.

Groundbreaking

Elder John K. Carmack of the Seventy and president of the North America East Area who presided over the groundbreaking services for the Louisville Kentucky Temple, spoke on the importance of temples in the life of the eternal family. Joseph Smith was intensely interested in the work of temples in the later years of his life, he noted. Having built the Kirtland Temple, laid the groundwork for two temples in Missouri, and nearly completed the Nauvoo Temple, the Prophet was “preoccupied” with temples and seeing that the Quorum of the Twelve had received the ordinances. Elder Carmack pointed out that “the way we live here has consequences in the next life.” He then quoted Hugh Nibley in saying that ordinances create order from chaos, and that like an observatory, the temple helps one get a bearing on the universe.^[2]Church News, 5 Jun. 1999.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Louisville Kentucky Temple was held on the same day as the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Adelaide Australia Temple and Veracruz Mexico Temple.

In addition to the professional crew, some local Church members also provided labor on the temple. One teen had the privilege of working on the temple to earn money to pay for his Church mission. He was thrilled to sit in the crane to help his father install the angel Moroni statue on the temple spire. Later, as construction was nearing completion, a group of young women gathered in a room of the temple to assemble chandeliers. As they worked, they sang hymns and brought a reverent feeling to the site.

During construction, winter drought conditions made the process go quickly and smoothly.

Open House

The dedication was held after a week long open house where the public was invited to tour the sacred building and learn more about the eternal purpose of Latter-day Saint temples. More than 21,000 people toured the completed building, including Kentucky’s governor and other dignitaries. Senator Dan Kelly, the first Latter-day Saint elected to state office in Kentucky, came with his wife and helped explain the purpose of the temple to those present.

Dedication

On March 19, 2000, less than a year after the groundbreaking, Church members braved chilling torrential rains to attend the temple’s dedication. They gladly huddled under umbrellas as they waited to enter the temple, grateful that ideal weather had attended the temple’s construction and open house.

Thomas S. Monson, of the church’s First Presidency, dedicated the Louisville Kentucky Temple. During the dedicatory prayer President Monson, referring to the temple, said, “May it be a house of peace, a house of worship, a house of faith, and a house of prayer. May the ordinances performed herein, eternal in their nature, affect for everlasting good the lives of all who participate, whether they be working in their own behalf, or in behalf of the dead. May all who enter the portals of this house do so with clean hands and pure hearts, having left behind the stress and the worries of the world, to come within these walls and here experience the quiet beauty of Thy Holy Spirit.”^[3]”Dedicatory prayer excerpt: ‘Bless the youth in this temple district,'” Church News 25 Mar. 2000, 25 Jun. 2005

Dedication Order

It is the 76th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the first to be built in Kentucky.

Presidents and Matrons

Temple President	Temple Matron	Years Served
Michael Allen Gillenwater	Alexene Langdon Budd Gillenwater	2023–2023
Paul Ray Mortenson	Patricia Ann Elledge Mortenson	2020–2023
Edward Paul Daetwyler	Sally Ann Malin Daetwyler	2017–2020
John Franklin Cotton	Robin Lynn Borg Cotton	2014–2017
Larry Vernon Lunt	Susan Child Lunt	2011–2014
Dale Roy Hettinger	Norma Lee Nunn Hettinger	2008–2011
Robert Frederick Lowe	Svea E Pearson Lowe	2007–2008
James Wayne Hansen	Karen Lyon Hansen	2004–2007
Curtis Henry Ault	Dixie Jo Reynolds Ault	2000–2004

Details

Location

The Louisville Kentucky Temple stands on a wooded hillside 12 miles northeast of Kentucky’s biggest city. Located in the suburb of Crestwood, once listed as one of CNN’s 100 best U.S. cities to live in, this graceful marble house of the Lord serves Church congregations from Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and West Virginia.

Sculpted shrubs and flowerbeds beautify the grounds.

Exterior

White marble quarried in Vermont covers the temple exterior. Circular designs decorate the surface above each window, and circle patterns appear in the windows’ stained glass. The circle motif can also be seen on the top of the fence marking the temple lot’s perimeter. The temple has a single-spire. Capping the spire, a gold-leafed statue of the angel Moroni, a prophet from the Book of Mormon, raises his trumpet to symbolize the spreading of the gospel.

Interior

It has a total floor area of 10,700 square feet (990 m²), two ordinance rooms, and two sealing rooms.

Sitting on a one-acre site, the Louisville Kentucky Temple has a relatively small floor plan, consisting of only 10,700 square feet. The temple does not include all the features found in larger temples, such as a cafeteria or waiting rooms, but it houses all the important temple functions within its instruction rooms, sealing rooms (where weddings take place), a celestial room representing heaven on earth and a baptistry. Its simplified design is almost identical to several other small temples that were built during the same time in an effort to bring temples closer to more Church members. By streamlining the design, the Church limited construction and operation expenses, thus allowing more patrons to participate in temple worship. This floorplan differs from others of the same floorplan by having a larger Celestial Room. Brisbane Australia and Fresno California share this same floorplan variation.