The Paris France temple is not only significant as being the first temple in France; it is also one of less than a handful of temples whose construction commenced without a formal groundbreaking. I will never forget how I felt when I first heard that a temple was coming to Paris. I have loved the French language all my life, and I was excited for the opportunity to take French for three years in High School. If I had been able to serve a proselyting mission, I would have loved to go to France or somwhere French-speaking. As it was, I got plenty of opportunities to use my French in my service at the temple. I even was blessed to work at the temple with a French teacher who helped me with my pronunciation of French words. When my missionary service ended, I wanted to go on and study more French in college, but due to health reasons, my college experience ended early. I have tried to faithfully follow the news of the Church in France. I had for years felt that a temple in France would happen one day, but, as with the Payson Utah temple, I wasn't convinced a French temple would happen during my lifetime.
I will never forget the story from a French newspaper leaking the news that the Church was looking at building a temple in France. There followed a very vigorous, sometimes even hostile debate on Wikipedia as to whether we should use the date President Monson acknowledged plans to build a temple in France (sometime in July of 2011) or the date of the actual announcement (which came during the October 2011 General Conference). I waited with great anxiety to see when a groundbreaking date would be set. I was blown away by the report that, because of local opposition to the temple, a formal groundbreaking would not be held.
And so, the work commenced. I have kept an eye on the progress of this temple, because it's important to me personally. Things moved along slowly but surely. Though other temples came and went around the Paris France construction, I still rejoiced at the news of each development related to the temple.
I was gratified to hear through a comment on my own blog by Rick Satterfield just recently that a dedication announcement was just a matter of time. And now we have the wonderful announcement today of the dedication date. Truly it is wonderful to see the progress that is being made on temple construction worldwide.
I wanted to focus just on this milestone announcement for this post. I will post again in a few minutes with my updated temple construction progress report and an updated list of upcoming temple-related events. Until then, all the best!
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