Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced plans to construct a new temple in Portland, Maine. The new temple will be the Church's 383rd temple. This marks the first time that a new temple has been publicly announced outside of General Conference since the announcement of the Ephraim Utah Temple on May 1st, 2021.
I will provide an analysis on today's announcement in the coming days.
Personally, and this is just my opinion, i could see 6-7 Stakes assigned to the new Portland Maine Temple.
ReplyDelete1) Augusta Maine Stake
2) Bangor Maine Stake
3) Concord New Hampshire Stake
4) Exeter New Hampshire (could go either Boston or Portland or both)
5) Montpelier Vermont Stake
6) Portland Maine Stake
Leaving 8 Stakes of the 14 current, in the Boston Massachusetts Temple District.
And as an extreme outsider, the 7th in Saint John New Brunswick, in Canada. But it seems still closer to the Halifax Nova Scotia Temple.
Well, Matt, thank you, thank you thank you for posting this!!!!
ReplyDeleteI have cousins and in-laws that are from Maine and they’ve wondered if they would ever get a temple, and this is truly exciting news!
I know that on this blog a few months ago, a few of us questioned whether it would be local general authorities that might now start announcing temples in local meetings, and to see that this may now be the new precedent is truly exciting! Thank you so much for sharing!
Well, Matt, thank you, thank you thank you for posting this!!!!
ReplyDeleteI have cousins and in-laws that are from Maine and they’ve wondered if they would ever get a temple, and this is truly exciting news!
I know that on this blog a few months ago, a few of us questioned whether it would be local general authorities that might now start announcing temples in local meetings, and to see that this may now be the new precedent is truly exciting! Thank you so much for sharing!
I think the Portland Maine Temple will be the first in the US that shares a city name but from a different city in the US. All other examples I can think of involve shared names but in different countries. The 3 Santiago Temples, 2 Vancouver, 2 San Jose and 3 San Jose.
ReplyDeleteThis brings us to only 6 states in the US with no temple announced and means no state in the US does not have a temple at least in a neighboring state.
The indication here is that announcements will be made by an apostle or a member of the area Presidency "on location". In the past announcements not at general conference were either done by the Church president in various meetings, by his functioning counselor when he was not well enough or by various letters.
This is a slightly different approach. However I think it is a good one. It allows those most impacted to hear about it.
I do wonder if President Oaks might briefly summarize those locations announced recently in general conference.
It of course also lead to the question of when additional temples will be announced. we will see.
There's also Birmingham, Alabama and Birmingham, England
DeleteI wonder if this kind of local announcement of temples will become the new norm.
ReplyDeleteThe Newsroom release featured quotes from President Oaks and Elder Haynie that certainly seem to indicate that this will be the new norm. But I wouldn't rule out General Conference announcements of temples, at least not yet.
DeleteThis was on my "Other 40 list" (second highest tier after my top 20).
ReplyDeleteFor my full list see:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?hl=en&mid=1G7hdBBWl07qNmfixCPEyCf7dAOKzzjw&ll=10.028608009536745%2C0&z=2
With Maines announcement I think there are only six states and two territories in the United States without a temple that will be in there borders. I’m not counting Washington D. C. city limits as it is a city. They didn’t give there part back to Maryland. Temple in Maryland there.
ReplyDeleteVirgin Islands only small branches, Northern Mariana Islands I think one stake. Other territories have temple. States without temples announced, operating or under construction, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, West Virginia, and Mississippi.
It’s the end of general conference temple announcements. President oaks hinted at this in the last general conference.
ReplyDeleteThat's not quite correct. President Oaks stated in General Conference that "with the approval of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, we will not announce any new temples at this conference. We will now move forward in providing the ordinances of the temple to members of the Church throughout the world, including when and where to announce the construction of temples.”
DeleteAnd Elder Haynie, in making this announcement, noted that “President Oaks did not say there would be no further announcements of new temples — only that the timing and location of future announcements would be determined later.”
I see nothing in the wording of those statementsfrom President Oaks or Elder Haynie that support the notion that no more temples will be announced in General Conference. Instead, it seems likely that more temples will be announced outside of General Conference, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there will be no more temples announced in General Conference. Just my two cents based on what President Oaks and Elder Haynie actually said.
Well, how interesting… We will now have a Portland Temple on both the Atlantic coast and on the Pacific coast of the United States!!!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if part of the change also has to do with the vocal bursts during conference, even when the prophet specifically asked for there not to be.
ReplyDeleteThis is exciting. Maine was certainly on my list. It also means that announcements aren't 6 months apart, but can come any time.
@Kenny
DeleteI was thinking that, too.
President Oaks might want to move on from the spectacle of announcing them to cheers in conference, and instead have it be a more special, reverent event for the locals.
Pre Monson, this was the norm.
ReplyDeleteI am excited for the announcement of this temple for the people of Maine. This is needed and will be good.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am confused and slightly disappointed by this announcement. If the goal of the Church is to eventually get everyone within an hour of a temple, why would you build it in Portland and not Augusta? This still leaves Bangor over two hours away from the nearest temple, whereas Augusta would split the difference for the Maine stakes and each of Portland and Bangor would be an hour away. The location doesn’t make sense to me at all.
I am also disappointed by the confirmation that moving forward, temples will no longer be announced at General Conference. It was honestly a huge motivator to watch General Conference live. I guess I need to do some self reflection and figure out how I can start watching Conference for the right reasons.
Kintélé Republic of the Congo Stake (2301350)
ReplyDeleteOrganized on 30 November 2025
- Ferme Ward
- Kintélé Ward
- Makabandjilou Ward
- Mikalou Ward
- Nkombo Ward
Mission: Republic of the Congo Brazzaville Mission
Temple: Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple
I think Chris D. may have already reported on this, but the Salt Lake Winder West Stake was discontinued recently. Surviving units went to the Salt Lake Winder Stake and the Holladay North Stake. Also, the Taylorsville Utah Central Stake was discontinued in November, with surviving units going to the Taylorsville Utah Heritage Park Stake. It doesn't look like too many individual wards were closed in the discontinuations of either stake, but some were.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, it seems likely we will see a quite a few stake discontinuations in the Millcreek-Holladay-Murray area of the SL metro early in 2026. All 6 Murray stakes have stake conference on the same day in early February. All have 5 or 6 wards. I would expect 2 (possibly 3) of them to be discontinued. The East Millcreek, East Millcreek North, and Holladay Valley View Stakes all stake conference on the same day as well in February. I would expected 1 of those three stakes to be discontinued. The South SL, SL Grant, SL Millcreek, SL Granite Park, and SL Granite Stakes all have the same stake conference date in January. I would expect 1 or 2 of these stakes to be discontinued. In all honesty, I think it's a wonder some of these stakes have lasted this long with what seems to be continued decline in membership percentage in most areas of SL county, plus these areas (except for the East Millcreek area) generally being viewed as less desirable areas for LDS families to live now.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how come when many of these Salt Lake stakes get reorganized, they don't just rename the reorganized ones as "Salt Lake Utah" instead of just "Salt Lake."
DeleteOne issue with announcing temples in general conference is that it is a less than ideal time to announce temples for people in some places because no matter which session temples are announced in there will be areas that it is the middle of the night in at that time.
ReplyDeleteI am also thinking hearing say Elder Soares give a talk in Pirtuguese where he announces a new temple on a visit to somewhere in Brazil or Elder Caussé gives a talk in French where he announces a new temple to a primarily French speaking audience or Elder Fong gives a talk in Mandarin to announce a 3rd temple in Taiwan would be really special.
On a slightly different note in my branch for elders Quorum we went over Elder Peter M. Johnson's talk. We had at least 4 brothers there in elders Quorum who had not been baptized, one of whom was baptized later that sane day.
@John Pack Lambert
DeleteCongrats about the baptism in your ward!
Cool announcement about the newest temple in Maine! Great news for Saints in that area!
ReplyDeleteAfter the announcement, my mom told me that while my parents were touring the east coast this past summer, they attended church in the greater Boston area. While there, it was announced that the Boston temple would be closed on Thursdays since there were not enough temple ordinance workers. I just confirmed that it is still closed on Thursdays. So, interesting that the Boston temple can't supply enough workers, but there is going to be some congregations taken from there to another temple.
I don't see it as a negative that the Boston temple can't operate fully everyday. That is more common than you would think. I would be willing to bet most of the potential workers for the new Portland temple are unable to make that drive to Boston consistently
DeleteI have often wondered why some temple don't close during the middle of the day one or two weekdays per week. Maybe it's just me... and I'm not trying to be critical, but I'm not a big fan of service where there are way more people sacrificing their time than needed. For example, if a temple has low patrons during middle of the days on weekdays, closing the temple on Wednesday from 10a-4p (or something like that) wouldn't be a big deal, right? How many people are only free on Wednesday afternoon? People who have Tuesday & Wednesday or Wednesday & Thursday off of of work could go Tuesday or Thursday. Please, PLEASE correct me if I am missing something.
DeleteToo bad it's not open Thursday evenings. When I was working in NYC (busy job) Thursdays were the easiest day to leave work early, especially when we had a work event ... both jobs I had while living in NYC scheduled any work events on Thursday evenings ... I often ducked out of those events after people had downed 2-3 alcoholic beverages.
DeleteThere are some temples with only three scheduled endowment sessions per week. However, not having to travel hours to their nearest temple is quite a blessing. It takes me 7 hours to spend two hours at my closest temple. (2.5 hours each way)
DeleteHow busy is the Boston temple on Saturdays? A day when many people are off work.
ReplyDelete