BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Africa Newsroom Reports on the Groundbreaking for the Benin City Nigeria Temple & Dedication of the Abidjan Ivory Coast Temple; Groundbreaking Arrangements Set for the Vancouver Washington Temple

Hello again, everyone! During the last few days, the African Newsroom has confirmed Saturday's groundbreaking for the Benin City Nigeria Temple and Sunday's dedication of the Abidjan Ivory Coast Temple. I wondered if those would be the sum and total major temple construction updates we will get for the week, but still privately theorized that something else was likely to be announced today, in view of Memorial Day yesterday in the United States. 

That impression was proven correct with today's announcement of groundbreaking arrangements for the Vancouver Washington Temple. The confirmation of these arrangements, which I will detail shortly, follows that temple's original announcement during the October 2023 General Conference, the confirmation of the site location io February 2024, the release of the exterior rendering in September 2024, and the March 2025 announcement that preliminary site work was beginning.

As for the groundbreaking arrangements, that ceremony will be held on Saturday, August 23, 2025. Elder Mark A. Bragg, the outgoing president of the current North America West Area (which will be renamed the United States West Area on August 1), will preside at that ceremony. Interestingly enough, he will have been released from that assignment on August 1, so by the time of the groundbreaking, he will be filling other assignments at Church headquarters. 

Having previously served in the Family History and Church Communications Department, I could see him presiding at this groundbreaking in a new role, perhaps as the Executive Director of either the Family History or Temple Departments, either of which would make him a natural choice to preside at this groundbreaking.

Given that the Wellington New Zealand Temple groundbreaking will be on August 2, with this one set for August 23, I could potenitally see a couple others scheduled for groundbreakings in between those for Wellington and Vancouver. If nothing else is announced to occur before the latter date, this will be the twelfth temple groundbreaking in 2025. Last year, the twelfth temple groundbreaking was conducted on Saturday, September 27, so we are currently 35 days ahead of where we were, and other groundbreakings are forthcoming.

We also currently have some degree of a backlog in terms of temples that have had a groundbreaking recently but have not yet had full-scale construction begin, so hopefully some of those will be able to have construction begin soon. And with 3 temples completed and awaiting the announcement of their opening arrangements, I was a little surprised we didn't get any dedication announcements. Hopefully that is coming down the pike in the next week or two.

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. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are always welcome and appreciated, but never required. 

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.

UPDATE: Documents Relating to the April 2025 General Conference

 Hello again, everyone! Much later than I had originally planned (and even later than I promised to do so), I wanted to provide a look at my updated documents relating to the April 2025 General Conference. I think I have provided sufficient explanations for these documents previously, so this will just be a quick look at those updated documents. If any of you have any questions about anything, please let me know in the comments below.

We start with my predictions for the April 2025 General Conference, including the speaker lineup, the predicted changes in general leadership (which includes the projected numbers for the statistical report), and my projected prospective temple locations. Based on the scoring methods I have previously outlined, I put together this scorecard to analyze how well I did. 

With that result calculated at 71.05%,even with the curveballs thrown at me this time around (like failing to project that Bishop Causee would speak, or erroneously projecting that Sunday School President Paul V. Johnson would speak), my predictions still surprisingly remained in the middle range of my usual accuracy (60-80%). 

After General Conference weekend, I updated this document showing the total number of addresses given by our current apostles in General Conference, and created this document, which shows the length of each address given by each of our current apostles (16 in total this April, including the sustaining led by President Oaks on Saturday Morning). I also prepared this document, a projected table of contents for the May 2025 Liahona, which was updated with the actual page numbers once the PDF version thereof became available online.

This concludes my proverbial post-mortem for the April 2025 General Conference. I am already hard at work on my projections for the October 2025 General Conference. I also continue to monitor 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. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are always welcome and appreciated, but never required. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Groundbreaking Announced for the Singapore Temple

Hello again, everyone! This afternoon, the First Presidency announced a groundbreaking for the Singapore Temple. The announcement follows that temple's announcement in April 2021, with the site confirmed in October 2022, and the release of its exterior rendering just two months later. The Church selected its general contractor in May of last year, and the existing structures on the site were demolished beginning in December of last year.

I had projected that the groundbreaking for this temple would occur in the relatively near term, and I had also projected that the Church could break ground for other temples before that of the recently announced Welington New Zealand Temple on August 2, and I was correct on that as well. As for the groundbreaking for Singapore's first temple, it is set to occur on Saturday, June 28, under the direction of Elder Kelly R. Johnson, First Counselor in the Asia Area Presidency.

This announcement will now make this temple the tenth to have a groundbreaking this year, and knocks the Wellington New Zealand Temple down to being the eleventh. The eleventh temple groundbreaking last year took place on September 7, so the Church is now 5 weeks ahead and counting for temple groundbreakings in 2025 vs. 2024.

I am grateful for this fantastic news and the chance to share it here. 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. If you would like to support the work done on this blog, donations in any amount are always welcome and appreciated, but never required. 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.