Mormonism In Louisiana

            After going over Mormonism and the history of Joseph Smith in class, I felt the urge to learn a little more about this seemingly exclusive denomination and I saw the blog as the perfect opportunity to do so. As most curious people would start, I opened Google and typed in the words “Mormonism Louisiana”. I received the results that I expected, Wikipedia pages, a site called mormon.org, many news articles, and thankfully a very helpful and intriguing site titled “ldschurchtemples.com” (lds standing for Latter-Day Saints). After clicking on this site, I was then able to read about the one temple existing in Louisiana and view pictures of it. This temple, located in Baton Rouge, must serve all of Louisiana and Mississippi’s Mormon religion, as there is no temple existing in MS to date.

After learning more about the temple in Louisiana, I decided to go to the site’s directory of temples in all of the states of America, as it turns out, there are very few temples in the southern states at all and an amazing seventeen up and running temples in the state of Utah. As we learned in class, Utah is known as the home of Mormonism but to see that number, I have to admit that I was quite surprised to learn that the religion has managed to remain so successful throughout so many years and is still growing rapidly.

            Due to their radically different beliefs and ways of doing things, the Mormon religion in Louisiana went through a slow growth process of conversion from 1895 to 1955 and only consisted of about 3500 members. Today however, there are over 24,000 members in Louisiana. The ceremony and site dedication of this exclusive Mormon temple here in Baton Rouge were held on May 8, 1999 and the temple was open to the public for tours July 1st through the 8th 2000. The president of the Mormon Church, Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the temple for use on July 16, 2000.This beautiful Baton Rouge, Louisiana temple serves all Mormon Church members in New Orleans, Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, Monroe and Slidell, Louisiana, as well as Gulfport, Hattiesburg, and Jackson, Mississippi.