Stokes Sounds Off: BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Open Houses, Rededications Announced for Raleigh North Carolina and Baton Rouge Louisiana Temples

Search This Blog

Leaderboard

Friday, May 3, 2019

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Open Houses, Rededications Announced for Raleigh North Carolina and Baton Rouge Louisiana Temples

Hello again, everone! In a stunning announcement which I certainly didn't expect this soon, the First Presidency detailed the open house and rededication information for the Raleigh North Carolina and Baton Rouge Louisiana Temples. Open house tours will be offered for the Raleigh NC Temple from Saturday September 21-Saturday September 28, except for Sunday September 22. The temple will be privately rededicated in 1 session by President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, on Sunday October 13, and will reopen for ordinance work on Tuesday October 22, 2019.

In the meantime, the open house for the Baton Rouge LA Temple will take place from Saturday October 26-Saturday November 2, with the exception of Sunday October 27. The single-session rededication for this temple will take place on Sunday November 17, with Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles presiding thereat.  I'd just like to make a few general comments on this news:

First, this information replaces the estimates I offered earlier this morning. Second, the one-week open house and private rededications in one session may become the new normal for the smaller Hinckley-era temples. Third, it is apparent that, at least for the moment, the First Presidency may call on any of the seven most senior apostles to rededicate temples, while the dedications for new temples could be done by any of the apostles, and particularly those who have personal connections to those temples.

I say that because what I have seen on my end demonstrates that the authority to dedicate or rededicate temples is inherent in the keys of the apostleship, since those ordained as such have the power, under the direction of the Church President, to bind and seal on earth and in heaven. I was also pleasantly surprised by this news, since I thought for sure the next temple event to be announced would be the dedication of the Arequipa Peru Temple. I could still see the Church scheduling that soon, and that could still be set to occur in October or November/

What that means for the remainder of the year may be difficult to determine. Clearly any temple groundbreaking could be announced and held for any day of the week except Sunday, and I hope there will be many of those in the second half of this year. But temple dedications or rededications are much harder to pin down in terms of their timing. I would anticipate at least that the dedication for the Arequipa Peru Temple may be announced soon, and it is possible that the dedication of the Durban South Africa Temple and rededication of the Asuncion Paraguay Temple may round out the end of this year.

I do continue to monitor all temple-related developments and will be sure to pass along word of those as I learn of such things. That does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated, on any post at any time, as long as such comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. Thank you for the privilege of your time. If you enjoyed what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly-added content, please feel free to subscribe. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.

3 comments:

  1. Hello again, everyone! I wanted to report that, since it is now roughly 5:25 PM Saturday evening in Yigo Guam, the groundbreaking for the temple in that city was held 6-8 hours ago. And given that it is roughly 6:25 AM Saturday in Praia Cabo Verde and 3:25 AM Saturday in San Juan Puerto Rico, in 5-8 hours, both of those temples will also have had their groundbreaking ceremonies. At this point, I am not sure how soon reports of those groundbreakings will be made available, but I will be publishing a new breaking news post around 12 hours or so from now to share the reports I may have found by that time.

    In the interim, it is also worth mentioning that, barring anything unexpected, I would anticipate full-scale construction beginning for all of these temples within the next week or so. And although the First Presidency indicated that the construction for each of these temples would take roughly 2 years to accomplish, I could see that sped up by as much as 6-9 months, depending on how quickly those processes progress for each.

    I wanted to note as well that I am reasonably certain we will hear about other groundbreaking announcements being made by the First Presidency within the next 2-3 months, though if that occurs, I still believe the Lima Peru Los Olivos Temple will be the last one to have a groundbreaking during the first half of this year.

    There will be much more ahead to report here on this blog, and you can count on my doing so as I learn of such developments. Stay tuned for that. My thanks once again to you all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello again, everyone! I have now conclusively verified that all three temples (Yigo Guam, Praia Cabo Verde, and San Juan Puerto Rico) have had their groundbreaking ceremonies, but for some reason, none of the official sources to which I presently have access seem to have any coverage on those groundbreakings. I assume that will change at some point either later today or sometime tomorrw.

    In the interim, I also wanted to note that, once full-scale construction begins, those temples will take their places between the Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire and Pocatello Idaho Temples. Within the next 6 weeks, the groundbreakings for the Quito Ecuador and Lima Peru Los Olivos Temples will be held, at which point a couple of the sections of my temple construction progress report will look entirely different.

    One other noteworthy factor which may be of interest to at least some of you: I have been made aware of some new information regarding the current and future temple construction efforts of the Church, and based on those insights, I will likely be revisiting my estimates for known temple events yet again in the near future. The only constant thing appears to be change, as the saying goes. Stay tuned for more on all of these matters as I find out more, and my thanks once again to you all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have found an article on the Cape Verde edition of the Newsroom which covers the groundbreaking for the Praia Cabo Verde Temple:

    https://www.saladeimprensamormon.org.cv/artigo/realizada-cerimonia-abertura-terra-templo-praia-cabo-verde

    Reports on the Yigo and San Juan temple groundbreakings may still be pending, but I will bring word of those to you all as i receive it. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

In addition to my life-long love for the subjects which I cover in the posts of this blog, I have long held the belief that we can disagree without becoming disagreeable. Differences of opinion are natural, while being disagreeable in expressing those differences is not. And in that sense, I have no desire to close the door on anyone who earnestly desires to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on subjects covered in the posts on this blog.

At the same time, however, I recognize that we live in a time when incivility, discourtesy, unkindness, and even cyber-bullying has regrettably become part of online interactions. With that in mind, while anyone who wishes can comment on anything if they choose to do so, I hereby reserve the right to immediately delete any comments which are critical, unkind, lack civility, or promote prodcuts, services, and values contrary to either the Church, or to the rules of online etiquette.

I'd also like to remind all who comment here that I try to respond personally to each individual comment as I feel is appropriate. Such replies are not meant to end the conversation, but to acknowledge earnest feedback as it is submitted.

And in order to better preserve the spirit and pure intentions for which this blog was established, I also hereby request that anyone not commenting with a regular user name (particularly those whose comments appear under the "Unknown" or "Anonymous" monikers, give the rest of us a name to work with in addressing any replies. If such individuals do not wish to disclose their actual given names, a pseudonym or nickname would suffice.

Any comments made by individuals who opt to not give a name by which they can ber identified may, depending on the substance and tone of such comments, be subject to deletion as well. I would respectfully ask that all of us do all we can to keep the dialogue positive, polite, and without malice or ill-will. May the Lord bless us all in our discussion of these important matters.