REXBURG —Construction workers at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Teton River Idaho Temple are perhaps the luckiest in their trade.

While they get paid for their work, church missionaries from a neighboring visitor’s center minister to the workers every day — not by presenting formal missionary discussions, but by bringing treats and friendship, getting to know the men who spend every weekday dedicated to finishing the new Rexburg temple.

“Most of our mission is about being good disciples of the Savior,” said missionary Beth Anderson. “There are great workers. We just visit and treat them as friends because they are friends. They are talented, wonderful men, and they’re doing a wonderful job out there.”

The Teton River temple will be the second in Rexburg, situated along the same street as the first — East Second — placing the two temples just 3.5 miles apart.

Beth and her husband, Wayne Anderson, of American Fork, Utah, have spent more than two years at the construction site developing friendships with workers.

“Our primary responsibility is to minister to the workers and to get to know them,” Beth Anderson said. “(We’re here) to learn what their trade is and what they’re working on. We care about them.”

About 130 men from across the country currently work on the temple. The majority — whether full-time construction workers or subcontractors brought in occasionally — are not members of the church, Anderson said.

The Andersons also operate out of a single-wide trailer where they greet visitors — both locals and those traveling from out of state — who want to witness the construction of Idaho’s 11th temple.

“We’ve had folks from Boise, Puerto Rico, Canada and the Ukraine,” Beth said.

The Ukrainian visitor was a Brigham Young University-Idaho student.

“She was here going to school,” Beth said. “She’s on her way back to Europe.”

As summer approaches, the Andersons expect more visitors traveling along U.S. Highway 20 on their way to national parks.

“We’ve had people from all over the U.S. — Florida, New Hampshire,” she said.

The Andersons show visitors a YouTube video detailing the temple’s construction timeline and answer questions about the project and the area’s history.

The couple also schedules appointments with larger groups, including Church Activity Day boys and girls. A Spanish-speaking ward from Idaho Falls also plans to visit.

“If you have more than 25 people, we go to you,” Beth said. “We are going to a Relief Society group in Salem.”

Rexburg resident Andrew Flamm stopped by Wednesday for his first visit, though his wife and children had already been.

“I was driving past (and thought) ‘I haven’t stopped,’” he said. “I wanted to stop and see.”

Flamm said he was caught off guard when the church announced it was building a second Rexburg temple.

“I was excited,” he said. “I was surprised because we already had a temple, and we’re in a small town.”

When not serving visitors or ministering to workers, Wayne takes daily photos of the ongoing construction while Beth compiles a weekly narrative of the progress and sends it to church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

The late President Russell M. Nelson announced plans for the new temple during the October 2021 General Conference. The church purchased 100 acres from the Hegstedt family and dedicated 30 of those acres to the temple site, with the church’s real estate department overseeing the remainder.

The church held the groundbreaking on June 1, 2024. Though originally planned at 130,000 square feet, the design was scaled back to 100,000 square feet — still nearly double the size of the current Rexburg temple at 57,500 square feet.

Six temples currently operate in Idaho — Boise, Burley, Idaho Falls, Meridian, Pocatello, Rexburg and Twin Falls. Others under development include Coeur d’Alene, Montpelier and Caldwell.

Rexburg holds a notable distinction among temple cities. When complete, the Teton River Idaho Temple will make Rexburg the sixth city in the world to have more than one operating temple, joining South Jordan, Utah; Provo, Utah; Lima, Peru; St. George, Utah; and Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Idaho claims a strong Latter-day Saint presence, with 460,000 members attending 1,200 congregations statewide. Three church presidents — Harold B. Lee, Ezra Taft Benson and Howard W. Hunter — were Idaho natives.

With nearly a dozen temples being built across the state, the joke making the rounds Wednesday was that Idaho is becoming “as bad as Utah,” where temples dot nearly every town.

“Not as bad as Utah, but as good as Utah,” Beth said.

The Andersons will continue serving at the visitor’s center until the temple is completed. They haven’t been given a timeline, but say they’re content to keep at it.

“We love what we do,” she said.

The visitor’s center is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.