Stokes Sounds Off: BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple To Reopen Under Phase 3 Next Week; Site Location Announced for the Lindon Utah Temple

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Monday, December 21, 2020

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple To Reopen Under Phase 3 Next Week; Site Location Announced for the Lindon Utah Temple

Hello again, everyone! Two breaking temple developments have been announced by the Church wintin the last hour. First of all, a couple of weeks ago, the Church announced that some temples would soon reopen under phase 3 of the four-phase plan. Phase 3 allows the scheduling of limited proxy work, where local COVID-19 conditions and restrictions allow, and as scheduled. The first four temples set to reopen in that phase were based in the Pacific Islands and the Asia North Area of the Church. The Taipei Taiwan Temple became the first of those to reopen under phase 3, which became effective today.

Today, the Church announced that the Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple will be the second of the original four announced to reopen under phase 3, and that change will go into effect next week. That is the one and only change in the phased reopening of temples that will go into effect next week. As of today, 11 temples remain in a "paused" status in their reopening due to local COVID-19 conditions and restrictions. 23 others remain in phase 1 of the reopening process, whiich allows for limited living husband-to-wife sealings were both individuals have previously been endowed. 

The reamining 121 temples that are reeopened remain in phase 2, which allows for all living ordinances, with priority given first to previously-endowed couples to be sealed in the temple, then to those preparing to be married who have not yet received those ordinances, then to missionaries already out in the field who were not able to receive those ordinances before their departure, then to all missionaries preparing to go out into the mission field, then to anyone else who may need to receive their own ordiancnes for any other reason.

I am grateful that the phased reopening of temples continues relatively unabated, and if that were the only news to report today, I'd be happy enough. But the Newsroom also reported today on the announcement of the location and preliminary details for the Lindon Utah Temple. Utah County's newest temple had been announced in General Conference two months ago, and the confirmation of the first official initial details today makes sense in light of the fact that the Church has announced temple locations for many United States cities of late within 2-3 months of the original announcement for that temple.

So let's get to the details. The Lindon Utah Temple is planned to be a 3-story edifice of roughly 81,000 square feet and will be built on property near 800 East and Center Street in Lindon. In the coming days, project managers will beging working with city leaders through the approvals process for that temple. One the necessary approvals and permits are issued, the Church will then set a groundbreaking time-frame for the temple. An exterior rendering for that temple will also be released once the necessary approvals are given for that.

Today's announcement marks the first time in roughly two months since the Church last announced any offficial details for previously-announced temples. This is also the first time the Church has identified a temple site without releasing a temple rendering at the same time since the announcement of the temple for Syracuse Utah, for which the preliminary information was announced on August 28. We see from this announcement that the Church continues to work on the current queue of announced temples. It will be interesting to see if any other announcements related to temple construction are made before the end of this year.

I will keep tabs on all those developments, in addition to all Church news updates, and will provide information about all of that here as I become aware of it. 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

4 comments:

  1. The Church News has provided additional coverage on both breaking news updates I mentioned above:

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2020-12-21/lds-temples-open-worldwide-phased-reopening-183918

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2020-12-21/temple-reopening-status-tracker-worldwide-199279

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/temples/2020-12-21/lindon-utah-temple-site-announcement-200361

    My thanks once again to you all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Church News and the Newsroom have provided the following additional updates:

      https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2020-12-21/president-nelson-five-generation-great-grandfather-200407

      https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2020-12-21/president-nelson-christmas-children-colors-video-200374

      https://www.thechurchnews.com/global/2020-12-21/2020-year-review-events-covid-19-bicentennial-temples-missionaries-proclamation-200349

      https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2020-year-in-review

      My thanks once again to you all.

      Delete
  2. Hello again, everyone! In our mail today, we received a copy of the January 2021 Ensign. Among the features of it that immediately intrigued me were a triple-foldout of content, and an interesting anomaly in the list of the editor and advisers for those magazines. I spent a good few minutes trying to figure out why the names listed matched those that had been editing the magazines as of the September editions of this year. But then I realized that, in order to provide an accurate representation of the new magazines in the news releases about the global magazines, they had to have the first editions of each available to display in those releases. So the team that helped produce the first edition were credited with doing the same. By the February or March edition, I anticipate that the new team will have helped develop those, so they should be listed again at that time. My thanks once again to you all.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello again, everyone! After taking the last 24 hours to deal with some personal health issues, I am pleased to present the following Newsroom and Church News updates, which speak for themselves:

    https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/new-york-food-donations-completed-bicentennial-restoration

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2020-12-22/new-york-citation-200th-anniversary-first-vision-elder-christofferson-food-donations-200391

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2020-12-22/come-follow-me-2021-doctrine-and-covenants-church-history-revelations-sunday-school-presidency-200128

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/members/2020-12-22/utah-spencer-cox-pandemic-primary-pioneers-199963

    https://www.thechurchnews.com/podcast/2020-12-22/episode-10-deseret-news-editor-doug-wilks-journalism-hope-2020-200458

    My thanks once again to you all.

    ReplyDelete

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