Stokes Sounds Off: BREAKING NEWS: Urdaneta Philippines Temple Site Being Cleared; Artist's Rendering and Groundbreaking May Soon Be Announced

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Friday, July 6, 2018

BREAKING NEWS: Urdaneta Philippines Temple Site Being Cleared; Artist's Rendering and Groundbreaking May Soon Be Announced

Hello again, everyone! I have some breaking temple news to report. The LDS Church Temples Facebook page reported at around 1:00 PM today that site clearing activities were underway for the Urdaneta Philippines Temple, and that an artist's rendering and groundbreaking date are anticipated to be officially released in the not-too-distant future. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Apparently at some point within this last week, all hurdles that have continued to hold up construction on this temple since its' October 2010 announcement were unexpectedly cleared. This may be for a couple of reasons. As I recently reported on this blog, Elder Christofferson was in the Philippines Area recently conducting Church business, some of which may have been related to the issues that were preventing progress on this temple. I have also noticed that the Philippines Area has recently been visited by several other apostles as well, which makes me think that this development is as a result of their ongoing attention to this matter.

But above and beyond that, President Nelson has repeatedly emphasized his administration's focus on the temple, and also, as I reported on this blog late last month, Sister Joy D. Jones was late to a recent speaking assignment at a devotional on the grounds of the Manti Utah Temple because her meeting with the Temple and Family History Executive Council unexpectedly lasted 3 hours.

Now that this development has been announced, I intend to move the Urdaneta Philippines Temple to nearly the top of my list of recently announced temples. I say "nearly the top" because until a site rendering is released and a groundbreaking is announced, the groundbreaking for the Bangkok Thailand Temple may be announced first. Either way, it seems more than likely that both will have a groundbreaking at some point before the end of this year, even if they are the only two temples to have groundbreakings in 2018. But this surprising development means that we could still see one or two others in addition as well.

I continue to monitor all temple developments and will pass word of those along to you all as I receive it. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post (which will come in the next half hour or so and will be sharing the latest edition of my temple construction progress report), I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.

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