BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Additional Temple Reopenings Announced

Hello again, everyone! This morning, the latest temple reopening updates were released through the Newsroom, with those same updates noted in the Church News and reflected as well in the temple reopening status tracker, with each of those showing the changes that will go into effect during the first couple of weeks in July.

The Church has annrounced today that 17 more temple transitioned to phase 3 this week include 6 in Arizona (The Gila Valley, Gilbert,  Mesa, Phoenix, Snowflake, and Tucson), 4 more in Utah (Draper, Jordan River,   Oquirrh Mountain, and Salt Lake) and the following 7 elsewhere:Birmingham Alabama,  Houston Texas, Montreal Quebec, Nauvoo Illinois,  Panama City Panama, Star Valley Wyoming, and Tegucigalpa Honduras).

For the Mesa Arizona and Salt Lake Temples, still closed for renovation, their phase 3 designation will allow those rresiding in the two temple districts to schedule phase 3 proxy work at the next closest temple to them. Today's announcement means that all but 2 of the Church's 60 temples which were originally anticipated to open by the end of July. The remaining two are Los Angeles California and Port-au-Prince Haiti, which join the 36 temples announced last week for which reopenings are also planned by the end of July.

Today's announcement also indicated that the Manila Philippines and Stockholm Sweden Temples would move to phase 2-B, allowing all living ordinances and limited proxy baptisms by appointment. Both temples will shift to that phase on July 12. And the Church's plan to reopen The Hague Netherlands, Mexico City Mexico, and Vancouver British Columbia Temples in phase 2-B and the Kyiv Ukraine Temple in phase 1 next Monday remans intact.<

Additionally, the Durban and Johannesburg South Africa Temples have paused in their rheir reopenings due to local COVID-19 (both temples had recently transitioned to phase 3). As a result of changes announced today, next Monday (July 5), the Church's breakdown of temples by reopening status will stand as follows: 8 temples remain closed for renovations (4 of those 8 temple districts have been given phase 3 status, with 2 others in phase 2-B); 10 temples are currently paused in their reopening, of which 5 had been in phase 3, 2 had been in phase 2-B, and the final 3 had been in phase 2.

With 3 temples operating in phase 1, 13 in phase 2, and 50 in phase 2-B, the remaining 84 temples are all in phase 3. I am grateful to have learned about this updates and to have been able to pass them along to you all here. I continue to monitor all Church news and teple updates and will be sure to pass word of all such developents along to you all here as I becoe aware threof.

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 comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.

UPDATED: Significant Temple Developmnts Reported Days Before the End of the Second Quarter of 2021

Hello again, everyone! Although we are now just days away from the conclusion of the second quarter, also the first half) of this year, and although I will be bringing a special report to you all to mark that milestone on June 30/July 1, in the last 24 hours, new information and updates have changed the entire layout of the quue of temples now under construction. There is so much that has changed that the easiest way to relay the information is to provide a report from yesterday (Saturday) that demonstrates all of these changes. 

Perhaps most significantly, the position of many temples previously anticipated to be completed next year or the year after have been dramatically altered because of the progress (or lack thereof) or the availabe information (or the lack thereof). And particularly, the newest updates have dtrastically borken up the previously-larger queue of temples anticipated to be completed next year and the year after that. That queue will continue to change based on all the factors that led to the changes demonstrated in the latest report. 

Hopefully at least the information will be of interest to some of you. I continue to monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and will be sure to pass those along to you all as I become aware thereof.. 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 comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 

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. 

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Opening Arrangements Announced for the Mesa Arizona Temples

Note: This post was originally published at 10:02 AM, and updated with additional analysis throughout that afternoon.

Hello again, everyone! This morning, the First Presidency announced the reopening dates for the Mesa Arizona Temple. At some point shortly after the Newsroom reported those arrangements, subsequent additional coverage on the announcement was provided through the Church News. I was surprised by the timing of both the arrangements being announced and by the parameters of when that will take place. Let's get into the details. 

I want to note right at the outset that I had believed and asserted as recently as earlier this week that the reopening of the Mesa Arizona Temple seemed likely to be delayed into 2022, primarily because I knew Arizona has had some issues getting COVID-19 properly controlled. At the same time, however, I recognize that the First Presidency likely has some information that may not be available to those of us not privy to the relevant discussions that has led them to surmise that this temple can be safely reopened.

Getting into the specifics of this morning's announcement, the Church announced plans to dedicate the Visitor's Center on Thursday August 12 @ 7:00 PM PDT.The use of Pacific Daylight time in those arrangements may require a bit of explanation. Time works differently in Arizona. Most of the year, Arizona aligns with Mountain Standard time, as a result of which the time in Denver, a majority of Arizona, and here in Utah is exactly the same. 

But because Arizona does no spring forward or fall back time-wise, when daylight savings time impacts Denver and Utah, most of Arizona (including Mesa) does not shift, and the time during those months aligns with Pacific time (which is impacted by Daylight Savings).. So during Daylight Savings time, although most of Arizona doesn't observe that, given the shifts in Denver and Utah, the Pacific Daylight time applies to Arizona.

The open house for the Mesa Arizona Temple will be held in the weeks between the Saturdays of October 16 and November 20, 2021. That is a period of 35 full days, but tours will obviously not he conducted on any of the applicable Sundays (October 17, 24, and 31 and November 7 and 14), which brings the number of open house tour days down to 30.

A youth devotional is set to occur on Saturday December 11, with the rededication set for the following day. Three rededicatory sessions will be held (at 9:00 AM, 12:00 PM, and 3:00 PM). Presiding over that weekend's events will be President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency. The youth devotional and rededicatory sessions will be carried to all meeting houses in the temple district, which will allow a smaller number of guests to safely gather for each session in the temple proper.

And it appears that in-person attendance in the temple proper will be by invitation only. The announcement notes that additional details will be announced closer to that temple's opening. Given that the rededication of this temple is occurring roughly one month after the recently-announced dedication of the Pocatello Idaho Temple, it will be very interesting to see what happens in terms of opening arrangements for temples that are or will sonon be completed, and for the rededications of the Washington DC, Tokyo Japan, and Hamilton New Zealand Temples.

I imagine that the First Presidency is waiting a little longer on announcing arrangements for the Hamilton temple because more needs to be done to move it towards completion, but since New Zealand has the pandemic well under control, the Church could probably fit that in to the schedule wherever it might make sense. We additionally know that Brazil still does not have the pandemic under control, nor is that likely to occur until April of next year, so the dedication of the Rio de Janeiro temple might be postponed until that time. If Washington DC (technically Maryland), Japan, Manitoba, Ecuador, Guam, San Juan, and Praia all continue to see improvements in COVID-19 conditions, those temples could ee opening dates announced in the coming months as well.

The one big question, to which we might not have an answer in the near term, is whether any of these other temples to which I referred might be able to have their openings before the end of the year. My gut feeling is that the Church will likely hold off on announcing reopening arrangements for the Tokyo temple until after the rescheduled 2020 Olympic Summer Games in that city conclude. And it will be considerably easier for the Church to schedule openings for smaller temples. So I'm thinking that we might see the Church dedicate the Quito temple and rededicate the Tokyo and/or Hamilton temples by the end of this year, and that other temple openings or reopenings might be deferred until the early months of next year.

But the Lord has surprised us in the recent past, and He can and definitely will continue to do so in the future. In the meantime, I am grateful to have learned of and been able to cover this announcement today, and I was intrigued by the mention that "additional details" will be announced on the Mesa reopening closer to the time it is set to occur, so we'll look forward to seeing what that means. Aside from that, I will continue to also monitor all Church news updates and temple developments and will bring word of those to you all as I become aware thereof.

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 comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Site Locatons Confirmed and Preliminary Information Released for Three More Temples in the Western United States

Hello again, everyone! Within the last couple of weeks, six new temples announced during General Conference last April have had sites confirmed and preliminariy details announced. That trend continues today, with three more temples in the western United States having sites confirmed and preliminary information announced. Let's break down the details: The three today are the ones in Farmington New Mexico, Grand Junction Colorado, and Burley Idaho. The Farmington New Mexico Temple will rise at the intersecction of Windsor Drive and College Boulevard, on a site that is 6.62 acres. Plans call for a single-story temple of roughly 25,000 square feet (most likely comparable to the Bentonville Arkansas Temple), with the project to include a new meetinghouse adjacent to the temple.

The Grand Junction Colorado Temple is planned to have an identical square footage as the tmple in Farmington New Mexico. That project only includes the temple, which will be built at the intersections of North 12th Street and Horizon Drive. Meanwhile, the plans for the Burley Idaho Temple call for a two-story edifice of approximately 38,600 square feet. That temple will be built at the intersection of 150 East and 40 South, which is home to a 10.1 acre site.

Given the larger size of these temples, and the nuances that may factor in to their approval and construction processes, each of these temples could have a groundbreakng in the final quarter of this year, with varying time-frames for their completion. But this also further demontrates that not all of the temples announced most recently by President Nelson will be the smaller size that will use prefabricated modular components.

I suppose there is a chance that the Church could potentially expand the use of modular compoenents to slightly larger temples, so we'll have to see what happens there. By way of information, this leaves only 2 of the temples announced in the Western United States with no official information confirmed yet: Eugene Oregon and Yorba Linda California. But it wouldn't shock me if preliminary details were to come down the pike for both of those next week, along with one or two of their international counterparts. It will be interesting to see what happens there.

On my end, I continue to monitor all such updates, including new Church Newws reports and any other temple updates and will be sure to bring word of those to you all as I become aware thereof.

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 comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.

BREAKING TEMPLE NEWS: Additional Temple Reopenings Announced

Hello again, everyone! Last night, knowing that the Church would be making its' weekly temple reopening announcements this morning, I repeated the process I've used to prepare for that announcement by scheduling a post to be published here not long after the anticipated announcement was made. I prepared a scheduled post for that purpose by copying and pasting the content of my last update into that scheduled post.

The post I'd prepared in advance was published roughly 2 hours ago as arranged, but I had yet another rough night last night and I wound up sleeping through the Church News alert on temple reopenings that was sent at around the same time the post was published here. We have seen major temple reopening developments reported weekly within the last month, and today was no different. When I got the chance to go over today's report, there were some very significant developments reported today alone.

So I opted to delete the previously-published post and start fresh. There is actually more to the coverage of today's announcement than the usual 2 articles from the Church News and the Newsroom release. Let's get into specifics. This week, the Newsroom noted that the Kyiv Ukraine Temple, which has not reopened in any phase since the closure of all operating temples was first announced, will reopen in phase 1 (allowing living husband-to-wife sealings where both are previously endowed, with limited guests in attendance and COVID-19 guidelines strictly observed). That temple is set to reopen next Monday (July 5). That development was further confirmed by the Church News.

Aside from that long-awaited announcement, the Church also noted this morning that 4 temples (Mexico City Mexico, Paris France, the Hague Netherlands, and Vancouver British Columbia) will transition from phase 2 (allowing all living ordinances in priority order) to phase 2-B (continuing to offer all living ordinances in priority order, but also allowing the baptistries in each of those temples to reopen to small groups). Additionally, the Church reported that 16 more North American temples reopened in phase 3 yesterday (Monday June 21). Those temples, broken down by the area of the Church under which they fall, are as follows:

North America Central: Boise, Idaho Falls, Meridian, and Rexburg Idaho; Billings Montana

North America Southwest: Monticello Utah; 

North America West: Fresno, Newport Beach, Oakland, Redlands, Sacramento,  and San Diego California

Utah: Manti, Mount Timpanogos, Payson, and Vernal Utah

The Church has now announced phase 3 reopenings for 25 of the 60 temples mentioned in that announcement, which means there are 35 temples remaining from that announcement. By area, that includes the following temples:

Caribbean: Port-au-Prince Haiti

Central America: Panama City Panama and Tegucigalpa Honduras

North America Central: Nauvoo Illinois and Star Valley Wyoming

North America Northeast: Montreal Quebec

North America Southeast: Birmingham Alabama

North America Southwest: The Gila Valley, Gilbert, Phoenix, Snowflake, and Tucson Arizona; Houston Texas; and the Mesa Arizona temple district (which will allow patrons to schedule phase 3 proxy work at the nearest temple.)

Utah: Draper, Jordan River, and Oquirrh Mountain; and the Salt Lake temple district (which will allow those in that district to schedule phase 3 proxy work at the nearest temple).

Having said that, we now similarly break down by geographic area of the Church the 36 additional temples which are set to open in phase 3 by the end of July:

Europe: Frankfurt and Freiburg Germany; Bern Switzerland; Copenhagen Denmark; Lisbon Portugal; Madrid Spain; Rome Italy

North America Central: Denver and Fort Collins Colorado; Bismarck North Dakota; Chicago Illinois; Regina Saskatchewan; St. Paul Minnesota; 

North America Northeast: Manhattan and Palmyra New York; Boston Massachusetts; Columbus Ohio (which, while undergoing renovation, will allow patrons to schedule phase 3 proxy work at the next nearest temple); Detroit Michigan; Hartford Connecticut; Indianapolis Indiana;  Philadelphia Pennsylvania; Washington D.C. (which, while awaiting rededication, will allow patrons to schedule phase 3 proxy work at the next nearest temple).

North America Southeast: Fort Lauderdale and Orlando Florida; Columbia South Carolina; Louisville Kentucky; Memphis Tennessee; Raleigh North Carolina

North America West: Columbia River, Seattle and Spokane Washington; Medford and Portland Oregon; Anchorage Alaska; Los Angeles California

Philippines: Cebu City Philippines

South America Northwest: Guayaquil Ecuador

As of next Monday (June 28), the reopening status of all temples will break down as follows: 1 temple (Kyiv Ukraine) remains closed but is set to reopen in phase 1 next week; 8 others are undergoing renovation (2 of those districts have been granted phase 3 reopening status; with 4 granted phase 2-B opening status); 8 others remain paused (2 in phase 2-B, and 3 others each in phase 3 and phase 2); 2 remaining in phase 1; 18 in phase 2; 62 in phase 2-B; and the remaining 69 now in phase 3. The latest changes are also available in an area-by-area update of the temple reopening status tracker

I am grateful to have been able. to learn about and share these latest updates with you all. I continue to monitor all Church news reports and temple developments, and will be sure to pass word of those on to you all here as I learn about them.

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 comments are made in accordance with the established guidelines. 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.