Hello again, everyone! With the First Presidency reorganized, they have hit the ground running and have made significant announcements on this Monday relating to four temples: a groundbreaking for the Brussels Belgium Temple, exterior renderings for the Savaii Samoa and Tulsa Oklahoma Temples, and the site location confirmation and exterior rendering for the Houston Texas South Temple. So let's get right into exploring these latest updates:
Elder Jack N. Gerard, First Counselor in the Euorpe Central Area Presidency, will preside at the Saturday, November 22, 2025, groundbreaking for the Brussels Belgium Temple, While the groundbreaking in question will not include any turning of the soil (as the edifice is being built within an existing building rather than on empty ground), there will be a short program followed by a dedicatory prayer over the construction process.
It appeasrs that the Church is still trying to obtain the necessary approvals to turn the existing building intto a religious building with accommodations, but that the Church was able to get the go-ahead for this program and dedicatory prayer. Unless any other groundbreakings are scheduled between this Saturday (the groundbreaking for the Cape Town South Africa Temple) and November 22, 2025, the "groundbreaking" for the first temple in Belgium will be the 20th groundbreaking in 2025. But I still have a few temples I am anticipating will have groundbreakings this year, so we'll see what happens there.
Moving on to the Savaii Samoa Temple, the release of the exterior rendering today follows the March 11, 2024 site confirmation and the October 2023 announcement of that temple by President Russell M. Nelson. Hopefully a groundbreaking will follow either later this year or soemtime next year. Meanwhile, the Tulsa Oklahoma Temple was also originally announced in October 2023, and the confirmation of its' site location on August 12, 2024. I have no particular insights about the temple renderings in question, so I will let them speak for themselves. if any of you have anything to share about either rendering, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.
Finally, we wrap things up with the details on the Houston Texas South Temple. Following its April 2024 announcement, also by President Nelson, the dual confirmation today of the location and the exterior rendering is fantastic. The single-story edifice of approximately 46,000 square feet, along with a meetinghouse and an ancillary building, will rise on a 15.7-acre site along Fort Bend Parkway, just north of Sienna Parkway in Missouri City, Texas. I guess I wsas somewhat confused by the rendering because it looks in some ways similar to the modular temple designs we've seen, but since it is the wrong size for a modular temple, I'm not sure why that was my first assumption.
With the release of the information about the Houston Texas South Temple, this document shows the latest count of temples for which no information has been released. That number now sits at only 64, and I'm sure that will go down further in the coming weeks. I am grateful to see that the First Presidency is (thus far) sticking to the Nelsonian practice of 2:00 PM Monday announcements. Hopefully that continues. And the fact that we got major announcements about four temples meanss we had just about everything I projected, except temple dedications. Hopefully those will follow in the coming weeks.
I invite you all to stay tuned here for my coverage of the latest updates from the Church News, Newsroom, and Church of Jesus Christ Temples sites. I’ll be sure to pass word of those along to you all as soon as I learn about them. 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 all such 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. If you liked what you read here and would like to stay informed of newly added posts and comments, please subscribe to receive the applicable updates. 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.
The Church News has covered the announced updates for Brussels Belgium, Tulsa Oklahoma & Savaii Samoa, and the second temple in Houston Texas. My thanks once again to you all.
ReplyDeleteRelief Society General President Camille N. Johnson and Primary General President Susan H. Porter share their reflections on kind, gentle, & persistent President Dallin H. Oaks. My thanks once again to you all.
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