CASPER, Wyoming – One of the first striking features one notices as one enters the heavenly space in the new Casper Wyoming Temple is the bright, even and soft light that seems to come from everywhere.
The next thing you notice is the intense silence.
This room is one of several special places in a temple, but for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it is perhaps the most significant.
“It’s a place of prayer and contemplation,” explains Beth Worthen, communications director for the Casper Wyoming Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“There are no ceremonies held in the Celestial Room,” she said. “It is truly one of the most sacred places on earth where we believe we can come closest to God and feel His presence in the temple.”
With the completion of the Casper Temple, Church members can now participate in important ceremonies and contemplations without having to travel hundreds of miles.
It is the Church’s 201st operating temple. The announcement that Casper would be one of 19 sites for new temples around the world was made in April 2021. Before that, the closest temple for Natrona County residents was in Fort Collins.
In addition to Wyoming residents, the Casper Temple will serve Church members from parts of South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. More than 50,000 Church members in 50 congregations will have access to the Casper Temple, Worthen said.
Elder Randall Bennett and his wife, Shelley, arrived in Casper from Salt Lake City earlier this week to assist with the unveiling and preparation of the temple for dedication. He said there are about 350 new temples worldwide that are being prepared for dedication, are under construction or have been recently announced.
“Each of them has this inscription (above the main entrance): ‘Holy to the Lord: House of the Lord,'” Bennett said. “Here we learn more about God, with our main focus being Jesus Christ.”
There are numerous rooms inside the temple. Visitors wear their “Sunday best” before their visit and change into bright white clothing once inside. Men are given a white shirt, pants and tie, and women wear a long white dress with long sleeves. Other white clothing is used for baptisms or weddings.
A room with a baptismal font and adjacent dressing rooms is located in a hallway to the right of the entrance, and various rooms to the left are used for ceremonies, instructions, and other traditions. There is also a special room for sealing ceremonies, in which married couples are united with their children for eternity. This is one of several ceremonies that can only be performed in a special temple.
Casper is historically significant to the church’s history, as tens of thousands of early members moved through the area along the Oregon Trail to the Salt Lake Valley in the mid-1800s. The building’s design features numerous nods to Casper’s nature and past, with Native American motifs in the stained glass windows and Indian paintbrush on carpet patterns. Several original paintings depicting historic Wyoming landscapes or scenes were commissioned from local artists, including Justin Hayward, Grant Redden, Jim Wilcox, and Albin Veselka.
James Rasband, deputy executive director of the Temple Department, reflected on this story while in town for the new temple.
“Every group of members is thrilled to have a temple near them,” he said, “but I also love the history that lies beneath Casper, so it brings me great joy.”
Church members are encouraged to attend a temple according to their abilities and circumstances, he said.
“There is no requirement that you have to attend a certain number of times,” he said. “If you think about the circumstances in the past, it was not allowed very often, so it is a change for members to have this become a more regular part of their worship life.”
Individual tours for church members and contractors involved in some of the work have already begun, and media representatives were given tours on Monday. Journalists were not allowed to take photos, but the church made its own photos available through a website.
The public open house will be held from Aug. 29 through Sept. 14, excluding Sundays. Anyone is welcome to take a tour of the temple, Worthen said.
The official inauguration is planned for November 24. After that, access to the temple will only be permitted to church members.
