Manaus Brazil Temple Under Construction

The new Manaus Brazil Temple is officially under construction according to the site http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/ . The groundbreaking ceremony was held on the 20th of this month and pictured are available at the above site. The temple was announced a little over a year ago and will serve members of the Church which live in the Amazon River Basin. The new temple will likely serve members not only in Manaus's eight stakes (three of which have been organized since 2005), but also other cities in northern Brazil (like Belem, Porto Velho, and Rio Branco) along with the three stakes in Iquitos, Peru. Missionary work has been very strong in Manaus; the first stake was organized just 20 years ago. More stakes are likely to be created here in the coming years as converts continue to join the Church. Members in the area have had to travel either to Sao Paulo, Recife or Caracas to participate in temple ordinances.

Since this post and the previous post were about Brazil, I will add some more exciting news about the Church in Brazil. The city of Barreiras located in the western part of the state of Bahia received its first branch recently. This is the first city in this region to receive a branch. The city has over 100,000 people and is rapidly growing. Much success has been seen as the Church moves into the interior of the country. Four or five years ago, the city of Caico (near Natal) had only one branch and a neighboring city had a branch as well. No district was organized. A year to two ago a stake was organized in Caico with five wards from a district which was formed during that time. Just last fall, the first stake was organized in the adjacent Brazilian state of Tocantins in Palmas. Hopefully Barreiras will see similar growth, especially with the help of members moving to the area. You can find Barreiras on the map below.