Promised Updated Timeline by Which Future Temple-related Events Might Be Announced and Scheduled

And here I am yet again with the third post I promised. Just within the last 15 hours or so, I have had several reasons to want to update, refine, and retune my best guess estimates and predictions for when temple-related events might be announced and scheduled to take place. I will try to move as quickly as possible. As with other recent updates of this sort that I have done, please bear in mind that I will not be restating what has developed in terms of temple construction progress milestones. Those have been explored in the previous post or two.

That said, as you are all aware, the next temple-related events will be the already scheduled groundbreaking in Rio de Janeiro Brazil and the newly announced groundbreaking in Arequipa Peru on March 4. The Arequipa 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. Presiding at the groundbreaking for the Arequipa Peru Temple will be Elder Carlos A. Godoy, who presides over the South America Northwest Area of the Church.

It is so wonderful to have learned that these events will be held the same day. Not since October 17 of 2015 have we had two temples that have had a groundbreaking on the same day. On that day, ground was broken for the Tucson Arizona and Concepcion Chile Temples. So it is a very rare thing to have another two groundbreakings take place within a very short period of time.

I could also see the Church making a site announcement and subsequently holding a groundbreaking perhaps before the dedication of the Paris France temple on May 21. In addition to that dedication, we also have the rededication on June 4 for the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple. It will be amazing to see those events happen. As I have previously stated, I am especially excited to see the dedication of France’s first temple.

And in speaking in terms of future temple-related events, we cannot forget the other already scheduled dedications in Tucson Arizona on August 13, in Meridian Idaho on Sunday November 19, and in Cedar City Utah on December 10.

The next temples that could be dedicated or rededicated any time after that are Jordan River, Rome, Kinshasa, and Freiberg. When might those happen? I am more convinced than ever that we could see an official announcement for these milestones within the latter part of this year. I still believe that the Jordan River temple will likely be rededicated 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.

Given the progress that has taken place in Barranquilla, that temple has now jumped ahead of so many others, and it is most likely that we could hear of the announcement of that dedication by sometime in March or April, with the dedication itself perhaps taking place in June. If not in June, then it could be pushed back to August.

I could see the temples in Concepcion and Durban being finished by the time fall starts in 2018. The dedications themselves could take place for mid-November (Concepcion) and early December (for Durban).

I could see the temples in Fortaleza and Lisbon having their construction completed by the final months of 2018, with their dedications to follow in the early months of 2019 (certainly by no later than March). The temple in Winnipeg, which has not progressed beyond the groundbreaking that took place in December of last year, but it is being built to initially serve just one stake. So I could see that temple being completed and having a dedication announced within the first few months of 2019, with the dedication itself to follow sometime in May of 2019.

In the meantime, depending on what develops in terms of the construction of the temples in Rio, Arequipa, and Harare, I could see all of them perhaps being finished by the end of June of 2019, and the dedications to follow perhaps in August (for Rio), September (for Arequipa) and late November or early December (for Harare).

What these changes mean, as I have stated before, is that the Church will add 4 new operating temples and have one rededication by the end of 2017, and five other dedications and the remaining 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 and Arequipa, things happened very quickly there. As I have before observed as well, if construction begins in Harare anytime soon, it would make that temple historically significant in so very many ways.

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. We could also see the temples in Bangkok and Abidjan have its construction commence before the end of this year.

Without knowing how long the currently reported delays in Urdaneta might last, I  would certainly hope that they might be cleared up sufficiently by 2019, in addition to the other three that were announced last year.

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!