Newest Edition of When Future Temple-related Events Might be Announced and Scheduled to Take Place

Hello. Given new information that has come to light recently, I have felt it would be appropriate to revisit my projects for when future temple-related events might be announced and take place. Though my last such update was only 12 days ago, between all that has happened on this front, it seems like a great idea.

As mentioned, the next temple-related event will be the announced groundbreaking in Rio de Janeiro Brazil on March 4. That groundbreaking will be done by Elder Claudio R. M. Costa, the most senior General Authority Seventy who has served for almost six years as president of the Church’s Brazil Area. That said, we may see the timeframe for the Rio temple completion follow roughly the same timetable by which the Winnipeg Temple is being built. They do seem to be roughly the same size. I will speak more on the potential completion date for this temple a little later.

I am equally certain that we could also see a groundbreaking for the Arequipa Peru temple taking place before the dedication of the Paris France Temple on May 20. We might also have a site announcement and subsequently a groundbreaking announced and done before too much longer as well. I will go into more specifics on this later.

In addition to the Paris France dedication on May 20, we also have the rededication on June 4 for the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple. It will be amazing to see those events happen. I am especially excited for the Paris temple dedication for the reasons I have before explained: my lifelong love of the French language, and my elation at being able to study it for three years in high school.

I had projected that a dedication for the Tucson Arizona temple might take place in early August. As we all know, that has been scheduled for the second Sunday in August, the 13 to be exact. So that is exciting. And, as we know, the scheduled open house conclusion proceeds the actual dedication by about two months, so that it does not in any way disrupt the annual July recess of the Church leadership.

It is interesting to note that while everyone had seemed to indicate that the announced dedications in Meridian and Cedar City were most likely to happen by early fall of this year, which is still late in the year. However, we were all pleasantly surprised, I am sure, to find that the Meridian dedication is being scheduled for Sunday November 19, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. In the meantime, the Cedar City Utah dedication has been slated to take place one week following the day Elder Holland will celebrate his 77^th birthday.

Now that we have confirmation that the Jordan River Utah Temple renovation process will not be completed until next year, and since we have three temples in addition to that (Rome Italy, Kinshasa DR Congo, and Freiberg Germany), I think it is safe to assume that we might hear of the open house and dedication dates for these temples before the end of this year. As to the actual dedications, I will say that I think we could see Jordan River dedicated in mid-January, with the Rome and Kinshasa dedications to follow in late February and early March respectively, and the rededication in Freiberg to take place in late March or within the first two weeks following General Conference weekend in April.

In the meantime, we might hear of the dedication for the temple in Concepcion within the first half of 2018, with the dedication itself to follow sometime in August. Given the past precedent we have of the way the open house for the Tucson Arizona temple has been scheduled to end just prior to the beginning of the July recess for the General Authorities, I could definitely see that happening again for the Concepcion temple.

The construction of the Durban South Africa Temple still seems to be on schedule. I feel confident that the temple will be completed within a similar time frame to that which is almost certain for Concepcion and Rome, with an announcement for the dedication made within the first half of 2018, and the dedication actually scheduled for either late August or early September.

The temple in Winnipeg has yet to progress beyond the groundbreaking. However, given its size (very small), it seems that construction might be completed by around August 2018, with the dedication taking place in either late November or else early December 2018. It wouldn’t surprise me if a similar timeline held true for the temple in Barranquilla Colombia, which is further along in terms of construction, but will be a much larger edifice.

In the meantime, for the first time in doing such predictions, I feel bold enough to project completion dates for the two temples anticipated to be completed sometime around 2019. Despite the five-year span between the groundbreaking and the actual commencement of construction in Fortaleza Brazil, that construction is progressing rapidly. I reiterate my feelings that construction will be completed there within the early months of 2019, with the actual dedication taking place in either April or perhaps possibly May.

The Lisbon Portugal Temple is at a point that solidifies my belief that a similar time frame may be very likely to prevail as that which I have proposed above for the Fortaleza temple. It would not surprise me if these two traded spots a couple of times in terms of future completion. But right now, it seems safe to say that.

Given what I have been able to find out about the temple that will be built in Rio starting in the next month and a half, and because of its design, it appears to be a smaller temple that may also be built within 20 months of its groundbreaking. If we add 20 months to March 2017, we arrive at the calculation that the temple in Rio could have construction completed by November of next year, and seeing as how the completion of a temple precedes its dedication by several months, I will say it is still very safe to assume that the temple in Rio might be dedicated somewhere around or before the same time period as the temple now being worked on in Fortaleza.

If the temple in Arequipa Peru also has a groundbreaking and if the site announcement and subsequent groundbreaking for Harare takes place within the first six months of 2017, it would not surprise me at all if both of those temples were completed and had a dedication done during 2019, though that would likely be during the fall and winter months of that year.

In the meantime, as I have stated before, the Church will add 4 new operating temples  and have one rededication by the end of 2017, and six more new temples and two renovations completed in 2018. It is not likely that the Church will run out of temples to renovate anytime soon. If any of you have any theories regarding this subject, please let me know. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if some of the more recent temples were also scheduled for renovation.

One thing is certain: Any backlog that might have previously existed is now increases the likelihood that many more temples could be announced within the next two years. The exact number of those announcements remains to be seen, though I have given my thoughts regarding the most likely and most imminent picks.

Future groundbreakings may be more unpredictable to anticipate than I originally thought. I look at the groundbreaking in Winnipeg, and it happened much faster than usual. And with the way things unfolded in Rio, any delays that existed were cleared up very quickly.

That said, given what I have observed, in addition to the already-scheduled groundbreaking in Rio and the possibility that we might soon hear of a groundbreaking in Arequipa and also of a site announcement and groundbreaking in Harare, I will say that I could see the next groundbreaking taking place for the first Haitian temple in Port-au-Prince. I have no reason to back this up. It’s just how I feel, and we could have the site announcement and the groundbreaking by or before the end of this year.

A groundbreaking for Bangkok could happen by the beginning of 2018. The same timetable could prevail for the Abidjan temple. Who knows how long the currently reported delays in Urdaneta might last. I might venture to say that the remaining temples (the three others announced last year) might well have a groundbreaking by or before 2019.

I’m also very sure that many more temples could be announced within the next couple of years and have construction started as the Lord permits. I am very much looking forward to future events.

I continue to very much appreciate the feedback I get on things I post about here. Any and all comments on this new post are welcome. I look forward to the ongoing discussion of this important subject. Thanks!