20 Oct 2025, 2:13 p.m. MDT
A rendering and site map have been announced for the second house of the Lord in the Greater Houston area of Texas, the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the United States. It will be built in Missouri City, a suburb just outside Houston’s city limits.
The location and rendering of the future Houston Texas South Temple were announced Monday, Oct. 20, by The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to a news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Planned as a single-story building of approximately 46,000 square feet, the Houston South temple will be located along Fort Bend Parkway, just north of Sienna Parkway in Missouri City, southeast Texas.
Also on the 15.7-acre site — which lies about 30 miles south of the operating Houston Texas Temple — the Church will build a meetinghouse and accompanying ancillary building.
A map of the Houston Texas South Temple site. | The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church in Texas
President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for the southern part of Houston, Texas, on April 7, 2024. It was one of 15 new temple locations identified, totaling 350 in various stages worldwide.
Five of the state’s 10 temples are operating, including the Dallas (dedicated in 1984), Houston (2000), Lubbock (2002), San Antonio (2005) and McAllen (2023) temples.
Two temples, the Fort Worth and Austin temples, have been under construction since October 2023 and August 2024, respectively.
In addition to the Houston Texas South Temple, temples are in planning stages for Fairview, announced in 2022, and El Paso, announced in 2024.
In 1845, Elder Lyman Wight — then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles — led a company of Latter-day Saints to central Texas. Missionaries preached in Texas in the 1850s, until missionary work came to a halt before the Civil War, and nearly 1,000 converts immigrated to Utah from Texas.
In 1898, about 300 Church members settled on land purchased by the Church in northeast Texas that would become the colony of Kelsey.
Houston’s first branch was organized on Dec. 5, 1921, and the city’s first stake was created on Oct. 11, 1953. Church membership in Texas has grown rapidly in recent decades — from 132,000 Latter-day Saints in 1985 to just over 210,000 in 2000.
Texas is now home to more than 390,000 Latter-day Saints in over 750 congregations.