Hello again, everyone! As I anticipated, the First Presidency announced the next major temple construction announcement a few minutes ago: the opening arrangements for the Coban Guatemala, Salta Argentina, and Taylorsville Utah temples and the site location and preliminary information for the Cuernavaca Mexico Temple. Let's get right into the details:
We start with the Coban Guatemala Temple, which will have a media day on Monday, April 22, 2024, which will be followed by VIP tours the next two days. The temple will open to the public between Thursday, April 25-Saturday, May 11, 2024. Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the twelve Apostles will dedicate Guatemala's newest temple on Sunday, June 9, 2024, in two sessions at 10:00 AM and 1:30 PM Central Standard time.
Next, for the Salta Argentina Temple, a media day will be held on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, with VIP tours the next two days. The open house will be held between Friday, May 3-Saturday May 18, 2024. The temple will be dedicated by Elder D. Todd Christofferson, also of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, on Sunday, June 16, 2024, in two sessions at 10:00 AM and 1:30 PM Argentina standard time.
Moving on to the Taylorsville Utah Temple, Media/VIP tours will occur from Tuesday, April 9-Friday, April 12, 2024. Public tours will follow between Saturday, April 13-Saturday, May 18, 2024. The temple will be dedicated by Elder Gerrit W. Gong, also a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, on Sunday, June 2, 2024, in two sessions held at 10:00 AM and 1:30 PM MDT
Each of these dedicatory sessions will be broadcast to those in each respective temple district. I was amazed that all three temple dedications will occur in June. I will be interested to see if they can also dedicate the Casper Wyoming Temple before the end of the first half of the year. But this means that June is stacking up to be a very busy month for temple dedications. It also means that the dedications of other temples might be able to occur sooner than I had projected. i will revise my thoughts on that based on today's announcements.
We conclude now with the information about the Cuernavaca Mexico Temple. A single-story edifice of 19,000 square feet will rise on a a 5.36-acre site southeast of the corner of Calle Hernán Cortes and Calle Santa Prisca in Colonia Vista Hermosa, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. That is now the second Mexico-city area temple announced by President Nelson in October 2022 that has had a site location and preliminary information confirmed.
In view of today's announcements, I have updated my documents showing current apostles' dedications and rededications and announced temples for which no official information has been confirmed yet. And I still wouldn't rule out a June dedication for Casper Wyoming either. Hopefully these latest announcements will lead to further shifts in the temple construction queue. And temple dedications may be accelerated even more than I previously thought. So it's back to the drawing board with the estimates I've offered.
But the only constant in life is change, so I am happy to revisit that based on these latest announcements. I continue to monitor any and all Church News, Newsroom, and Church of Jesus Christ Temples updates and will be sure to pass word of those along to you all as they cross my radar. 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. Please subscribe if you liked what you read here and would like to be informed of newly added posts and comments. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.
No more groundbreakings announced just yet, but we're still 5 shy of 200 dedicated. I'm fairly positive the next 4 to be announced will be Casper, San Pedro Sula, Mendoza, and Tallahassee (not specifically in that order). There are several that could become the 200th, but I really don't know which one it will be. Salvador, Deseret Peak, Pittsburgh, Antofagasta, and Abidjan are all nearly completed, so it could be either of them to gain the distinction as the 200th operating temple of the Church. Abidjan would be nice, as it would be the last temple with an Angel Moroni to be dedicated, and it's also the temple that has been under construction the longest.
ReplyDeleteNoah, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Casper should be the next one up for dedication, and based on what I shared above and on the fact that Casper is a smaller temple, I fully anticipate that it will be dedicated before the end of June. Including the others you mentioned, I have my eyes on 8 total that I would categorize as "nearing completion" with 8 others in an "approaching completion" status. So that should set up 16 total dedications that could occur in the next 18 months or less. I'm still working on adjusting my thoughts on the timing for those 16 temples, so stay tuned for that.
DeleteAs far as groundbreakings, with the exception of a dedication for Casper Wyoming, other announcements I'd anticipate are 6-10 groundbreakings to take place between March or April and the end of August, several temples with sites confirmed having their exterior renderings released, and several more site confirmations. As to why we haven't seen more groundbreakings announced yet, I have a feeling that the Church is trying to focus on getting construction underway for the Heber Valley Utah Temple (which is still being stalled) and the Kaohsiung Taiwan Temple before announcing more groundbreakings. That's just my theory, and I hope I'm wrong, but it would explain why we've not heard anything since the Church set a groundbreaking for Knoxville that is set to take place at the end of next week.
But I'm not too concerned either way. The Church has its' legal experts working through litigation in Heber Valley and Cody, and also has several teams working on obtaining approvals for other temples. I am still firmly convinced on my end that we're looking at double-digit temple dedications and groundbreakings this year, and I don't think the lack of groundbreaking announcements at this point in January is any cause for undue concern.
The Church has surprised me with the massive number of temple dedications in June, and I have no doubt other surprises are in store. The Lord has shown that when He needs to, He can sweep away obstacles to temple construction, and I've no doubt that will continue as well. We've got two more weeks in January, so I can't rule out groundbreaking announcements on either or both weeks. Hope this comment is helpful to you, Noah. Thank you, as always, Noah, for taking time to share your thoughts. I appreciate your comments and input here.
Another interesting thing about the dedication of the Cobán temple in Guatemala. Although that city is primarily Spanish-speaking, it is the gateway or entryway into the Polochíc valley which is one of the many indigenous areas of the country. Nearly all of the people in those valleys speak Q´eqchi, a prominent Mayan language, and having a temple closer for them -- they will still be 3 to 5 hours away -- will be a tremendous blessing for them not having to travel the additional 5 hours from Cobán into Guatemala City. In 2017 Elder Dale G. Renlund created the Senahú stake, the first stake in the Polochic area of Guatemala. The first stake in Guatemala where Spanish was not the predominent language. It required a lot of travel and logistics for him to travel there with Elder Kevin Duncan (the area president at the time) and their wives for that stake creation. Thousands of members came from near and far, by bus, open-bedded trucks and by foot to be there. I find it a tremendous blessing for the people that Elder Renlund has been assigned to dedicate the temple in Cobán. Undoubtedly there will be many Q´eqchi speaking mayan members traveling to Cobán to accompany the Spanish speaking members at the temple dedication. They all dearly remember Elder Renlund visiting their area and speaking to them when that stake was created. Patzicía.
DeletePatzicia, thanks for taking time to share this. That is a very cool story. I know that President Nelson seems to be assigning temple dedications to apostles based on personal connections they have. What you described could explain why Elder Renlund will dedicate the Coban Guatemala Temple. But I also know that temple dedications by certain specific apostles may be indicative that those assigned apostles (in some cases) are supervising the areas in which the temples they are assigned to dedicate are. I know for a while, Elder Soares had been given oversight for the Central America Area, but President Holland has recently made other changes to apostolic assignments, so it seems likely that Elder Renlund has some oversight role for Central America now. Thanks for taking time to comment. I always appreciate hearing from you.
DeleteHello again, everyone! The Church News shared reports on the scheduled dedications and the site confirmation. And in honor of today being National Religious Freedom Day, the Church News shared 5 Church leaders quoted on that subject. The five leaders included President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency (from whom 2 quotes were shared); Elders Quentin L. Cook and D. Todd Christofferson, both of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and Relief Society General President Camille N. Johnson.
ReplyDeleteThe Church News also noted information about how to get tickets for the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square's concerts during their upcoming tour leg in the Philippines. I also wanted to note here for anyone interested that, to my knowledge, the Church has not yet publicly identified the first leaders for the Salta Argentina and Coban Guatemala Temples, but that I expect those announcements will be forthcoming soon, since both temples are set for dedication in June. My thanks once again to you all.
Thank you for your updates
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure. Thank you, Chris, for your friendship and readership.
DeleteHere are two more updates: one apiece from the Newsroom and the Church News. My thanks once again to you all.
ReplyDelete