Architect's rendering of a temple that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will build in Tucson.Listen:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced it will build its first Tucson-area temple.
Members of the church don't go to temples to worship on Sundays; in fact they’re not even open that day. Sunday services take place in the more than a dozen meetinghouses in the area.
Temples, on the other hand, are open Tuesdays through Saturdays, and people go seeking something other than what they get in Sunday services, said Jana Cherrington, Tucson public affairs specialist with the LDS organization.
"For us as members of the church, it’s a peaceful place. It’s a place to be reminded of who we are and who we want to be," she said.
The Tucson temple will be built in the Foothills on North Skyline Drive. It’ll be the organizations’ sixth in the state and will serve more than 30,000 Mormons from across Tucson and southern Arizona. Cherrington said temples are built where they’re needed.
"When there’s enough membership to support the temple," she said.
The organization will break ground on the site on Oct. 17 and Cherrington said construction will take around three years. She said the organization isn't releasing the cost of the facility.
According to the LDS website, there are currently 173 temples around the world either in operation, under construction or that have been announced.
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