Hello again, everyone! At this early evening hour, I have breaking temple news to report. As shared by the Newsroom and the Church News, reopening arrangements have been announced for the Tokyo Japan Temple. Let's get right into the details: A public open house will be held from Friday June 3 to Saturday June 18, with no tours offered on Sunday June 5 or 12 (making the open house a total of 14 days).
A youth devotional will be held on Saturday July 2, with the rededication thereof following the next day. President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, will preside over the 3 rededicatory sessions, which will be held at 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 3:00 PM on that day Tokyo time, which is 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM on Saturday in Utah, and the final session occurring at midnight Utah time when Saturday July 2 becomes Sunday July 3.
Unless I am mistaken, this is the first time since the Hinckley-era smaller temples that any dedication or rededication of a temple occurred in July, which typically marks the annual recess month for the General Authorities of the Church. But as recently as this morning, I had privately theorized that the rededication arrangements for the Tokyo temple might be one of the next major announcements made. And this will actually put the rededication of the Tokyo Temple occurring roughly 6 weeks before the August 14 rededication of the Washington D.C. Temple.
I am grateful for this announcement. My research on the timing for other temple events indicates that we could see announcements soon for the reopening of the Hamilton New Zealand and Hong Kong China Temples, and that the opening arrangements for the Quito Ecuador, Belem Brazil, San Juan Puerto Rico, and Helena Montana Temples could also follow. My understanding is that New Zealand is hoping to reopen to the United States towards the end of spring or the beginning of summer in Utah.
But as always, COVID-19 has been the huge game-changing variable here. So I will be interested to see what happens with all such announcements in the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, I'm thinking that any other temple groundbreakings might only be announced to occur after the annual July recess. I'd be pleased to be wrong on that, or on anything else, but for right now, it seems like the Church is easing into scheduling future events, which I think is a very smart approach.
I continue to monitor all such developments and will bring word of those to you here as I become aware thereof. In the meantime, 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 feedback offered is consistent with the established guidelines. I hope any of you who would like to share anything will take your opportunity to “sound off” in the comments below. 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.
