Sunday, April 1, 2018

Seven New Temples

This afternoon President Nelson announced seven new temples to be built in the following locations:

  • Bengaluru, India
  • Cagayan de Oro, Philippines
  • Layton, Utah
  • Managua, Nicaragua
  • Richmond, Virginia
  • Russia (major city to be determined)
  • Salta, Argentina
Analysis regarding this announcement to follow. More information available at: https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/new-temples-april-2018-general-conference.

35 comments:

MainTour said...

Layton temple will cover a big gap between Bountiful and Ogden.
Is Bengaluru the same as Bangalore?

David Todd said...

Yes, Bengaluru is the same city as Bangalore.

Mike Johnson said...

Bengaluru is where President Nelson and Elder Holland are going in few weeks. It is where one of two India missions is located a mission that covers several stakes and districts.

Mike Johnson said...

I am still a bit stunned about Richmond. I have been wanting that for a while now.

Russia--Moscow or St. Petersburg I would imagine?

Mike Johnson said...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am exhausted.

I loved Elder Holland's line about all the changes and that some of us have weak hearts. But, President, you can fix that.

Cory said...

It appears like in the past decade many Indian cities have shed their colonial British names for a more local name:
Bombay - Mumbai
Madras - Chennai
Bangalore - Bengaluru

Moscow seems like a natural choice, St. Petersburg is too close to Helsinki.
Perhaps Saratov, as it is closer to the districts in southern and eastern Russia.
Perhaps it depends on the church's ability to obtain a site and approval the fastest.
It probably will be one of these three because many general authorities have made it clear that a temple is accompanied by at least one stake in a city.

James Anderson said...

Looks like they 'went nuclear' with this conference, about the only thing that could have been done was announce something would be added to the scriptures, but they still made an uncanonized revelation more widely available last night.

That was the John Taylor revelation, first published in an old priesthood manual from 1982 in a lesson on prophets.

Thomas Jay Kemp, a person known in family history circles for owning GenealogyBank and working to help get old newspapers digitized, was serving in Taos NM in 1969 and said last night he heard Elder McConkie describe almost to a T what we heard last night as something that would happen in a future day.

'Ministering visits' was referred to just last week in that document on abuse, we should have known something was up then since the phrase 'home teaching' was not used there, they used 'ministering visit' there.

Of course we called it when it came to temples, with a couple of unexpected ones too. Salta was mentioned in passing once here but not mentioned much though.

Downtownchrisbrown said...

I'm wondering if all of these changes are going to result in smaller wards. Since there is no longer a need for Wards to supply High Priests and with greater emphasis being placed on ministering to the one, it feels as though this could more easily be accomplished with smaller wards. Allowing for those in Ward Council to better understand the needs of those in the Wards.

Also, I wonder if we will see more branches advance into wards, and districts into stakes with these changes.

The Opinion said...

Eider Anderson visited the youth in our stake (Indianapolis West) last December and advise our stake president that in the next two years many changes will be coming out. Look for more to come as they try to simplify the church programs and procedures. At this point, I won't be surprised if the ward sunday school is dissolved and those responsibilities of teaching are given to the RS Pres and EQ Pres and then implementation of a two hour church service. Sacrament meeting and then council meeting with your quorum/auxiliary. The change with the adult curriculum would allow this to easily happen now. Meanwhile the Primary would have class for 8-11 yr olds and singing time for 4-7 yr olds for just one hour.

With this change, the church would be able to have more wards fit into buildings allowing the idea of smaller wards to come to fruition.

After today it doesn't seem as wild as once thought.

James Anderson said...

Sunday School though, is a 'common denominator' between us and almost all the mainline religions. It is something nonmembers always recognize when they come. It is designed to give us instruction on what is in the scriptures generally, and we study each book once every four years. Being taught the doctrines by being taught the scriptures--and where things generally can be found, is important. Converts may be of any age so missions, seminaries and institutes, etc., are things where you get into the scriptures deeply, is not always possible for them, so some way to get a basic grounding will need to be maintained on an ongoing basis. Elders Quorum and Relief Society will teach from General Conference, our modern uncanonized scripture, and aid significantly in the ministering with the monthly first Sunday council meeting

Eduardo said...

The pilot 2 hour plus block being used by Chile back in 2005 or so (I was there that year) would have one week of Sunday School followed by the Sunday with second hour of Priesthood and Relief Society. 5th Sundays maybe combined, I can't recall. Also just one hour for primary, perhaps they alternated song and class time like the weeks for the adults?
I am not sure how long this was implemented or if still de rigeur but Elder Holland had been down there for two years and must have assessed the need. Especially for elderly and youth. Most people walked to church.

Deivisas said...

How fitting it is that the Apostle who was asked to open the doors of the countries in Eastern Europe, would go on to become a future President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Prophet to announce a Temple in Russia! I think that President Nelson almost started to cry tears of joy before announcing the Temple in Russia :)
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-11-022-unto-all-the-world-the-gospel-in-russia?lang=eng

Alex said...

I had heard a rumor a couple years ago about discontinuing Sunday School. Incidentally, a couple weeks later I was called a Sunday school president and teacher Council meetings were implemented.

I can definitely see this change coming in the future, but I personally would be disappointed if other changes didn't come to. As it stands Sunday school is the only time for formal teaching from the scriptures for adults in the church. The youth do get that in seminary, but there is no real equivalent for adults.

Also, as was mentioned, Sunday school is the most recognizable part of our church services to those outside the church. As such it actually is my wife's best route currently for missionary opportunities. She is a gospel doctrine teacher. And this allows her to have a common link to her friends who are Sunday school teachers in their congregations.

Mike Johnson said...

TempleRick, I am glad to see the new temples are mentioned on your site. You always do such a good job of getting the information up fast. That said, the announcement was at the end of the Sunday afternoon session and not in the Sunday morning session. Clearly, President Nelson has changed the normal order of things.

Mike Johnson said...

The announced plan is for Sunday School to begin in 2020, what the Youth had a few years ago and Priesthood and Relief Society this year.

Sunday School is also a time for youth to meet in a class with mixed gender and the same for the adults.

twinnumerouno said...

Mike,

I also found it kind of exhausting (actually, I usually start feeling overwhelmed by the last session of conference, and then we got one that was pretty heavy!). I have been thinking of what was described about the high expectations Pres. Nelson had for the residents he was training as a good analogy for this general conference. Every session had some kind of surprise- even this morning Pres. Nelson surprised me by conducting a session himself!

I had also about decided there wouldn't be any temple announcements this time, and then wham! One last surprise, as I didn't expect that many. (Usually the number of temples announced is less than the number under construction when new ones are announced- I hope that means that several groundbreaking ceremonies are imminent!) 7 more temples will bring the total to 189 when they are all completed, so just 11 more would be needed to reach the "200 temples by 2030" goal that James has suggested.

The Opinion, I agree that Pres. Nelson has shown he is not averse to making changes. However, regarding your suggestions about Primary, I sincerely hope you're wrong. I am the Primary pianist in a fairly small ward and I do not think our Primary programs could be carried very well by the 3-7 year olds. Also I am sure that at least some of the older kids love the singing time. I think some of our best singers are 8 or 9. Perhaps Eduardo's suggestion to alternate weeks could make it workable though. But if this is changed, I hope it will be a while so we can recover and adjust to the changes that have just been made.

Deivisas: Then-Elder Nelson was also the apostle who suggested a temple in Nicaragua, and I am happy he followed up on that in his first conference as prophet. With this temple in Nicaragua, every Central American nation but Belize will have one, and Cuba and Puerto Rico (the latter not technically a country) will be the only Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America without a temple.

Christopher said...

I haven't heard anything about Mongolia for quite a while. I remember reading about the high number of youth serving missions, but I understand activity rates after continue to be a challenge. How is the potential for congregational growth looking? And would a temple in Russia be more accessible for them than Hong Kong?

Eduardo said...

Maybe South Korea is a better temple option for Mongolians. Or Japan, depending on fares or visas. All that aside, by sheer distance Mongolia deserves their own temple.
I'm excited about northern Argentina getting Salta but I still think Patagonia way down south still needs one, actually at least two if you consider the Chilean 10th Region as greater Patagonia. If you ever look at Chile's 11th Region, there is isolation. Yukon or Nunavut will get a temple before them. Although the 12th Region could get one someday.

Christopher Nicholson said...

So happy for India. Elder Maxwell predicted a temple in New Delhi, but Bengaluru is much closer to the bulk of the membership, albeit the stakes are still spread out over hundreds of miles. So we can anticipate a New Delhi temple in the future, and who knows what else? With India's geographical and population size, I see no reason why we couldn't have forty temples there in some future day. Of course, we'll need to get a lot more missionaries there. Elder Christensen recently exhorted the local missionaries to "replace yourself with a local missionary who isn't already planning on serving."

John Pack Lambert said...

I have to admit I am surprised no new temple was announced for Nigeria. This is quite a good set of announcements though. I still hope for Benin City and Freetown this fall.

John Pack Lambert said...

Temple announcements do not need to predate the forming of stakes. Also does Freibourg even have a stake? I thought the stake was based in another city. Saratov and Moscow to me are most likely the only contenders. I could be wrong.

John Pack Lambert said...

I have been hearing rumors on the near demise of Sunday School for years and do not expect it ever. President Hinckley fielded a question on this topic in an interview in 2000 and seemed to suggest it would not happen. With plans to change the adult curriculum at the start of 2020 I dont think Sunday School is going away any time soon. I could see ward choirs being dissolved much sooner.

I dont see the dnd of high oriests groups as making much of a change to ward sizes. Not unless the directives on minimum numbers of members on the records change. If there is a place that is most likely to change it is some areas of Utah, specifically high growth areas. You only need 3 high priests for a new ward. Also I have to impression that at times there was reluctance to ordain not that old men as high priests although I have known many young high priests.

It is hard to know. To me the big change is more gender balance in ward council.

If anything leads to more wards it will be the positive benefits of having young women involved in ministering.

L. Chris Jones said...

The Kiev Ukraine temple was announced before a stake was created in that country. I think that happened in a couple other countries as well. This conference had many inspired changes. I expect great things to happen.

James Anderson said...

Ward choirs are a voluntary thing with only the directors and accompanists being called by the bishopric. Add to that the massive amount of available music now on the Church music site (over 700 pieces, but some are for soloists and instrumentalists) and a massive quantity of both paid and free music composed by members (and I have composed three new musical settings for existing hymns), we can thus never hear it all.

twinnumerouno said...

John, your other points are good, but I hope the statement about choirs is you being facetious. I know not every ward has one but my experience is the places that have one really value them for bringing the Spirit into meetings. (For that reason I don't believe they will ever be eliminated.) I am also not sure how there's an equivalence with Sunday School, unless choir practice becomes an official part of the church block. Our ward just changed time for choir practice so members of the other ward in the same building can join us, as our choir is small and they have not had one for years. So far we have had 1 sister come 3 times and another just came for the first time. We are hoping for more. The bishopric and high councilor always seem to love hearing us sing.

Chris, 2 other examples according to ldschurchtemples.com: Laie Hawaii and Hamilton New Zealand were announced before there were any stakes. In New Zealand they had 2 districts but no stake.

John Pack Lambert said...

Switzeland and the UK had temples years before they got stakes. The New Zealand Temple was dedicated a few weeks before New Zealand got a stake. It was 14 years from when Hawaii got a temple until it got a stake. DC goes 34 years from first stake to temple and the Eastern US 40 years.

It is not until after the New Zealand temple is built that the Church truly internationalizes stakes. From then on Ukraine is the only pre-stake temple.

India's time from first stake to temple announcement is fairly low, almost as low as Ghana's, maybe lower.

I really do not think ward choirs need to be disbanded. I just wonder at times if the almost every Sunday of the year practice model makes sense.

John Pack Lambert said...

At one point when I www as growing up in my ward they called people as members of the choir. Choir is a potential thing that distracts from family time but admittedly is complex.

Elder Groberg on his mission found cases where choir practice attensance exceeded that in sacrament meeting. I often wonder if my fiancee's branch is missing out on something without a choir. Especially considering how central choirs are to the historical African American Church experience.

Eduardo said...

As a high priest I have taken my wife (more Church approved) and my daughters (different ages, less approved officially) to visit some of my home teaching families. It was a better alternative than not going. Also, one single sister has a single daughter that benefits from my daughters' association. I have made more visits with priesthood companions, but my point is that the sisters within my family have helped a great deal. Should be easier to do now.
Ministering.
Awesome.
I'm still stuck on a temple for Maui, with only two stakes. Osorno Chile should get one, surrounded by over a dozen stakes.
Mongolia, still. Phnom Phen, for sure. And Singapore or Malaysia. And Indonesia.

brycen said...

Osorno could get a small temple, but I only see 5 stakes that are close to it, plus 2 more districts and a stake far to the south that would go to whichever temple is best for people who are flying in. There are 2 more stakes and 2-3 districts that are about halfway between Osorno and Concepcion and could go either way. I would say it would require some local knowledge of travel conditions to make a determination there.

A temple on Maui is possible, but I wouldn't call it likely.. Far more likely for the Marshall Islands, which have 2 stakes currently attending the La'ie temple.

I would expect announcements soon for Mongolia, Cambodia, and possibly Indonesia.

So we are now up to 189 temples in operation, under construction, or announced. Only 11 more to get to 200. How long do you think it will take to get to that number? I'm thinking 2-3 more years, but it's hard to predict what will happen with a new prophet.

I definitely enjoyed the companionship of older men when I was a teenager assigned as a home teacher, with 2 of my companions being my seminary teacher and a member of the Stake Presidency. I am glad young women will also now have this chance under the new program of ministering.

brycen said...

I meant to say that young women would have an equivalent experience with adult women, obviously. But perhaps they will also be encouraged to do as Eduardo has stated, and accompany their father or mother if there is a girl or young woman in the family.

John Pack Lambert said...

Pre-this month church guidance was that home teachers should be two brethren, one of which could be an Aaronic priesthood holder. My ward had at least one companionship that was two 17-year-old Aaronic priesthood holders. I am not sure this is in line with guidelines.

Officially, assignments of a priesthood holder and wife should be limited, generally involve older couple, be planned as such, and if that was the assignment, than the couple would be designated as both home teacher and visiting teacher. The reality has not always conformed to that, but that was church guidance.

John Pack Lambert said...

Well if Manitoba can get a temple with one stake, why can't Maui with 2. I also wonder if Honolulu could ever get a temple, but suspect not unless we see significant rises in the number of Church member in Hawaii. That or even more significant rises in temple attendance by members there.

John Pack Lambert said...

I think getting to 200 operating temples is more the goal we want to see than 200 announced. Clearly by 2030, I hope by 2025. The time betweeen announcement to dedication is a big factor of difference. For example Rome will take over 10 years, and Forteleza and Urdeneta are not on fast schedules either.

L. Chris Jones said...

It seems it is taking an average of 3-5 years for a groundbreaking and another 3-5 years of construction for most temples. Some are quicker and some longer. If we get 200 dedicated temple by 2030 the anniversary of the restoration. We will need many announced in the next three to five years. That is about 4-7 a year.

bball4ever said...

We only need 11 more to gET 200. Total temples (announced, under construction etc) are 189. So we just need 11 temples announced in the next 11 1/2 years. Now getting built and dedicated is a different matter.