BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Interior Renderings Released for Tooele Valley Utah Temple; Groundbreaking Arrangements Set for Feather River California Temple

Hello again, everyone! Breaking temple news on two fronts has been reported this morning. Firstly, the First Presidency released the interior renderings for the Tooele Valley Utah Temple. Project leaders have obtained sufficient city approval for the release of those renderings, and the groundbreaking arrangements for that temple at a later date. The renderings appear to draw direct inspiration from the architecture of buildings in the area, and many of the design elemnts are comparable to the beautiful natural scenes from many outdoor areas in Tooele. Aside from these notes, I will let the images speak for themselves, but if any of you have any other insights to share on these designs, I'd love to hear from you. If that were the only breaking temple news, it would be wonderful enough, but the First Presidency additionally announced this morning that the groundbreaking has been set for the Feather River California Temple. Oddly enough, that temple groundbreaking will be held in mid-July, on Saturday July 18, to be precise, marking the first time since the late 1990s-early 2000s under the Hinckley-era temple building boom that the Church has set a groundbreaking ceremony to take place in July, which is typically a recess month for all General Authorities of the Church. Elder Scott D. Whiting, a General Authority Seventy who currently serves as an Assistant Executive Director in the Temple Department and as First Counselor in the North America West Area, has been asked to preside over that groundbreaking ceremony. In a period of time where the latest temple groundbreakings have been conducted by apostles, members of the Presidency of the Seventy, or primarily the presidents of the areas in which the temples are being built, it is nice to see the status quo being shaken up in that respect a little.

Elder Whiting becomes the first representative from the Temple Department to preside at a groundbreaking since Elder Larry Y. Wilson, who at the time was the Executive Director of that Department, presided over the groundbreaking for the Winnipeg Manitoba Temple after the original arrangemenst for that temple's groundbreaking (which would have seen Elder Ulisses Soares, then of the Presidency of the Seventy, preside thereat) had to be altered. Attendance at the Feather River California Temple site for the groundbreaking will be by invitation only, but additional details will be provided to those within the anticipated temple district closer to the date of that groundbreaking. With the news of the Feather River California Temple groundbreaking, there will be a 5-week period between the previously-scheduled groundbreaking for the Auckland New Zealand Temple (which is set to occur on Saturday June 13) and the groundbreaking for the Feather River California Temple. Based on the unexpected timing whereby this groundbreaking was set, and also based on the unexpected scheduling arrangements for it, I have no doubt many other surprise announcements relating to temples that will soon have a groundbreaking will be coming down the pike.

The Feather River California Temple thus joins the Alabang Philippines, Layton Utah, and Auckland New Zealand Temples as being scheduled for a groundbreaking, and the Tooele Valley Utah Temple also remains at the top of my list of temples for which a groundbreaking is anticipated to be announced soon. And that also opens up the possibliy that the Moses Lake Washington, McAllen Texas, and Bentonville Arkansas Temples (all of which will be on the smaller side) could have groundbreakings scheduled later this year, with those announcements scheduling those groundbreakings around the groundbreakings for some of the larger US temples. And I cannot in good conscience rule out the prospect that other surprise groundbreakings may be scheduled at unexpected times with an announcement made earlier than anticipated.

I continue to monitor all such developments and will do my level best to bring word of the latest Church news and temple updates to you all here as I become aware of such developments. That does it for now. 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.