Stokes Sounds Off: 01/16/19

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Wednesday, January 16, 2019

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Private Rededications Scheduled for Memphis Tennessee and Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temples; Groundbreaing Held for Urdaneta Philippines Temple

Hello again, everyone! I am back with some breaking temple news. According to this release from the Church's official Newsroom, single-session (where attendance will be by invitation only) private rededications for the Memphis Tennessee and Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temples. No public open house or youth devotionals will be held.

The Memphis Tennessee Temple rededication will take place on May 5, and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will preside at that rededication. In the meantime, two weeks later, on Sunday May 19 (the same day on which the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple will be dedicated), President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, will preside at the rededication of the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple. Neither rededication will be broadcast to meetinghouses, so the Sunday block will continue as regularly scheduled.

I do wonder if private rededications will become the new normal for the Hinckley-era smaller temples. That would take less planning, and would allow several rededications to take place over a shorter period of time as required in the future. But perhaps the biggest thing that this announcement does is enables these two temples to be back open before the General Authorities observe their annual July recess.

My older sister and her family are living in the southeastern United States right now, and from what I hear from them, the Saints in the eastern states have had an unexpectedly long commute to the next closest temples. So it will be good to have both temples operating again by mid-May. In fact, the rededications of both temples will be held before the already-scheduled rededication for the Oakland California Temple in June.

Just by way of reminder, President James E. Faust, who was then serving as Second Counselor in the First Presidency, originally presided at the dedications for both temples, with the Memphis dedication occurring on April 23, 2000, and the Oklahoma City dedication being one of the rare ones which occurred during the annual July recess, on July 30, 2000.

The other big bit of temple news is the confirmation of the groundbreaking for the Urdaneta Philippines Temple. The Philippines Newsroom shared this article about that event, which was linked to on the Church's official English Newsroom. That article does not specify the anticipated length of construction for that temple, but other sources have provided sometime in 2021 as a general window until more is known.  And if the construction of this temple stays on track, I could see construction being completed in early-to-mid 2021, if not sooner. I will offer a more specific estimate for that temple when I next post my list of other estimates for known temple events, which I hope to do within the next week or less.

I do continue to monitor any and all Church news and temple events and will bring you all word of those here as I become aware of it. 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.