Hello again, everyone! True to form, on this Monday at this 2:00 PM hour in Utah, the First Presidency has made the first major temple announcement of 2023. The location and preliminary details have been provided for the Barcelona Spain Temple, which, as we know, was originally announced in April of last year. Here are the details:
A 5.4-acre site at the intersection of Avinguda de la Vía Augusta and Avinguda de la Clota, Sant Cugat del Vallès in Barcelona will serve as the location of the two-story 27,500 square foot temple, along with a 13,600 square foot ancillary building, which will include arrival and distribution centers and patron housing.
This now brings the total number of temples with sites announced to 25, most (if not all) of which will likely have groundbreakings this year. To be perfectly honest, I was hoping we might get an announcement on opening arrangements for either the Bentonville Arkansas or Okinawa Japan Temples, if not for both of them. But I'm not in any way disappointed by this news.
With 2 temples originally announced in April 2018, 1 each the following October and April, 3 from April 2020, 5 and 8 from April and October of 2021, respectively, and 6 and 14 respectively from April and October of last year (still weird to say that at this point), the Church has not yet announced any information on 40 of the 68 announced temples.
What does that mean for the future? Well, bearing in mind that there are 8 temples in the queue that might have opening arrangements announced in the next 4-6 months or so, and 25 temples with sites announced (with exterior renderings released for 11 of those), we are unlikely to be short on temple announcements.
I seem to recall that, during the pandemic, since the Church could not hold General Conference leadership meetings as usual in 2020, over the course of two days, two significant announcements were made relating to temple construction instead.
So I have a theory that, while Monday could be a day for some major updates like site announcements or exterior renderings, maybe Thursday, which has been a standard day for other major Church announcements, or another day of the week could be used to announce other major temple news.
Since President Nelson said a couple of years ago that things were going to move forward at an accelerated pace, it would make sense that, to keep up with a rapidly-progressing queue, some weeks going forward may include 2 temple-related announcements.For my part, I will continue to monitor all such updates and will do my best to bring you word of those (along with any Church news updates) to the best of my ability.
In the meantime, that does it for now. All comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated on any post at any time, as long as the offered feedback is made per 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.
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