Saturday, October 6, 2012

The Arequipa Peru Temple

Announced earlier today by LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson, the Arequipa Peru Temple is the Church's third temple in Peru.  In 1986, the Church dedicated its first temple in Lima and broke ground for a second temple in Trujillo 2011.  The Church has achieved steady growth in Peru over the past century, growing from less than 5,000 members to over half a million today.  The number of stakes has increased from one in 1970 to nearly 100 today. 

In Arequipa, the Church currently operates seven stakes within the city.  The first stake was created in 1980 followed by a second stake in 1985, a third in 1991, a fourth in 1994, a fifth in 1997, a sixth in 1997, and a seventh in 2011.  Although no announcement has been made concerning what stakes will be assigned to the new temple, it is possible that a total of 15 stakes and seven districts may be serviced by the new temple throughout southern Peru.  A map of stakes and districts in southern Peru can be found here.

2 comments:

Irwin said...

Today is a beautiful day, I'm so happy I do not mind That and I operated my body hurts, I knew I had to announce a temple in Peru, Arequipa, southern Peru will be very blessed, now a long wait for the Chiclayo Peru Temple, impressed that we are the second country with more than 3 temples in South America after Brazil thanks God, alone lack exceed 100 stakes this year.

Unknown said...

I could see an expansion of the Lima Temple or an additional temple in Lima. There are 40 stakes in Lima alone! 5 missions in Lima. The Lima temple is the second smallest in the world in terms of square footage. With Trujillo now under construction and Arequipa announced I would see the next outlying area to be Chiclayo. Chiclayo currently has 5 stakes plus additional 3 stakes in Puira, 1 in Jaen, 1 in Tumbes all north of Chiclayo going towards the border with Ecuador. That would be 10 stakes for Chiclayo district. My guess is the church will wait till they see the numbers out of Chiclayo attending the Trujillo temple. The Trujillo temple is not likely to be finished until 2015. Back in 2001 when i was serving my mission down there we were told that the most amount of temple attendence to the Lima temple was coming from the North and Trujillo areas of Peru. Also the stakes in these outlying areas do Peru have now matured. Most of them have been around for 10-20 years now.

Another area might be Iquitos since they have 3 stakes but they are so remote in the Amazon.

Great blessing for the saints of Southern Peru. They have had some devastating earthquakes downthere in the Past 15 years. We had a lot of missionaries serving in Trujillo from the Arequipa region. Great people, they deserve it.

I wonder when the Concepcion Chile temple will start construction and if they will announce additional temples there, in Argentina, Bolivia or Ecuador.? An addional temple in Venezuela would be nice but giventhierpolitical climate with Chavez I would think that would be pretty far out at this time.