PROVO -- The Nauvoo Temple has a special place in the hearts of Latter-day Saints, and not just because it is where sacred ordinances were -- and will be -- performed.

The temple occupies a unique position as both a reminder of sacrifices early church members made for their religion, as well as significant development in the church's doctrine.

"We might look at Joseph Smith's career and see Nauvoo as the frosting on the cake in terms of doctrinal development," said Richard O. Cowan, a professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University, and author of the book "Temples To Dot the Earth."

It was at Nauvoo that the temple ordinances Latter-day Saints are familiar with -- baptisms for the dead, the endowment and sealings -- were first introduced. And the Nauvoo Temple was the first edifice the church erected specifically to perform those ceremonies.

But Nauvoo was not the first temple the church set out to build.

It completed a temple in Kirtland, Ohio, in March 1836. Church members believe that Jesus Christ and ancient prophets appeared in the temple to church leaders Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to accept the temple and restore priesthood authority to the earth.

But Cowan said Kirtland was a preparatory temple, in that only preliminary ordinances were performed at that time.

"There were no facilities in Kirtland for what we think of as temple ordinances," Cowan said.

The church also had plans to build temples in Independence and Far West, Mo., but church members were driven out of those places before they could be built.

The Kirtland Temple was abandoned because of persecution and is now owned by the Community of Christ, formerly known as The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

After fleeing Missouri, the church settled in what was then called Commerce, Ill., on the banks of the Mississippi River. The city was renamed Nauvoo and, in 1841, Smith announced that the Lord had commanded the church to build another temple there.

It was also at Nauvoo that the full temple ordinances were instituted, Cowan said.

The first was baptism for the dead. Church members initially were baptized for their dead in the Mississippi River until the temple's baptismal font was ready, and that ordinance continued in the temple.

On May 4, 1842, the endowment -- a ceremony that illustrates man's relationship with God and the high standards followers of Jesus Christ should maintain -- was instituted. The first ceremonies were conducted in the upper room of Smith's Red Brick Store in Nauvoo.

In 1843, sealings -- where husbands and wives were wed for eternity and had their children joined to them forever -- were introduced.

Construction began April 6, 1841, with members sacrificing time and money to build the temple.

"They did a tithing on their time. Every 10th day was their day to work on the temple," Cowan said.

Women in the church pledged to donate a penny a day to help construct the temple, and many of the workers agreed to donate their labor.

Joseph Toronto, a convert from Sicily, donated his life savings -- $2,500 in gold coins -- to help finance the construction.

It was during this period that the Relief Society, the church's women's organization, was founded.

It started when women in the church joined together to make shirts for the men working on the temple.

The temple's limestone walls stood in contrast to the brick and frame homes church members lived in on the Mississippi flats.

Cowan, who recently visited Nauvoo, said the reconstructed temple captures the original's majesty and size.

"The impression is it is so large, but it is built to the same dimensions," Cowan said.

The temple was only partially completed when Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob at Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844. But church members decided they would finish the temple and dedicate it before leaving Nauvoo for the West.

As portions of the temple were completed, they were dedicated for ordinance work and put to use. Church members anxiously flocked to the temple to receive ordinances before they would be forced out of their homes.

On Christmas Day 1845, 107 people received their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple. By the end of December, more than 1,000 church members had received temple ordinances.

"Such has been the anxiety manifested by the Saints to receive the ordinances (of the temple) and such the anxiety on our part to administer to them, that I have given myself up entirely to the work of the Lord in the temple night and day," Brigham Young wrote.

Young said he managed four hours' sleep each night and was able to go home once a week.

Even when Young told church members it was time to leave Nauvoo and that there would be temples built in the West, people refused to leave until they had received temple ordinances.

The entire temple was dedicated in April 1846, two months after most church members had left Illinois.

The temple was used by various groups afterward and was set on fire in 1846, gutting the inside and weakening the stone walls. In 1850, a tornado finished off the destruction of the building.

The church reacquired the temple lot in 1937, and in 1977 installed a 9-foot replica of the temple on the site.

At the April 1999 General Conference, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley announced that a church member had donated money to rebuild the temple.

"(The reconstructed temple) will stand as a memorial to those who built the first such structure there on the banks of the Mississippi," President Hinckley said.