Potential Temples in the United States

Predicting where the First Presidency announces temples in the United States can quite difficult. This is evident with yesterday's announcement of the two temples in Arizona. Although most saw two or more new temples likely to be announced in the coming years in Arizona, few anticipated one would be so close to the Mesa Arizona Temple and the other not being in Tucson.

Keeping that in mind, here is a list I have compiled with likely cities to receive temples in the coming 10 years. These predictions are made as a combination of the size of existing temple districts (the number of stakes and districts assigned to a particular temple) as well as number of stakes in a particular geographic region. The first number in the parentheses represents the number of stakes the temple would serve and the second number represents the number of districts the temple would serve. The bold number shows the number of stakes located within the metropolitan area of the named city.

• Indianapolis Indiana (8,0) 3
• Kansas City Missouri (9, 0) 5
• Layton Utah (30, 0) 18
• Miami Florida (7,8) 5
• Milwaukee Wisconsin (6,0) 2
• Pensacola Florida (6,0) 1
• Pocatello Idaho (20, 0) 10
• Price Utah (8,0) 5
• Rogers Arkansas (6,0) 2
• Spanish Fork Utah (26,0) 23

These cities represent regions where a temple is either far away or where there are many members that attend a temple with a large number of stakes in its temple district (75 stakes are assigned to the Ogden Utah Temple for instance).

The United States currently has 67 temples operating, under construction or announced. No other country in the world comes close to accommodating Church membership in such a way (because the lack of members or inactivity). Because of this, it is unlikely that many new temples will be announced in the United States until further growth is experienced in conversions and reactivation. However, the small, 10,700 square foot temples can be built to accommodate just two or three stakes (The Colonia Juarez Temple serves only two stakes and two districts and Bismarck North Dakota Temple serves three stakes and one district). As I mentioned in an earlier post, these temples tend to be located in isolated areas.

Perhaps rising gasoline prices may help to initiate temple construction in the United States in other cities such as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Augusta, Maine.