President Nelson has announced the equivalent of a new temple every two weeks since he became the prophet

Posted on by

This Church News article looks at some interesting numbers on President Nelson’s temple-building push since he became the prophet.

He has announced 118 temples over 1,723 days as Church president — a rate of a temple announced every two weeks!

Here are some more interesting numbers:

  • Dedicated — 2
  • Scheduled for dedication — 1
  • Under construction — 41
  • Scheduled for groundbreaking — 1
  • With site announced and rendering released — 11
  • In planning and development — 62
  • Total — 118

The geographic breakdown of the 118 temples is as follows:

  • United States — 41
  • Mexico, Central America and Caribbean — 16
  • South America — 19
  • Europe — 7
  • Africa and Middle East — 15
  • Asia and the Philippines — 13
  • Pacific — 7

Temples are getting closer and closer to members. When I first joined the Church in the 1990s, the closest temple was a five-hour drive away. Now, there is a temple just a half-hour drive away.

I lived in Brazil for several years, and members tell crazy stories about how they used to take a week to travel to the Sao Paulo temple, which was the only one in the country for many years. Now there are 18 temples in Brazil.

And how about President Nelson announcing on Sunday four new temples in the Mexico City area?

This entry was posted in General by Geoff B.. Bookmark the permalink.

About Geoff B.

Geoff B graduated from Stanford University (class of 1985) and worked in journalism for several years until about 1992, when he took up his second career in telecommunications sales. He has held many callings in the Church, but his favorite calling is father and husband. Geoff is active in martial arts and loves hiking and skiing. Geoff has five children and lives in Colorado.

8 thoughts on “President Nelson has announced the equivalent of a new temple every two weeks since he became the prophet”

  1. At ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, it was posted that the total number of all temples, in all phases, included announced, is now 300.

  2. It’s been quite a change through my lifetime in what a temple is supposed to be and how its structure and presence symbolize that. Sunday President Nelson announced second temples for Buenos Aires and Las Vegas, so the rolling out of new temples is at a stage of second temples for cities with a couple dozen stakes. The drive from the Lone Mountain Nevada stake center to the Las Vegas temple is 18 miles, which Google is projecting as a 31-minute drive this morning (6:40 AM); perhaps on busy afternoons it takes 45 minutes these days.

    In 1997, President Hinckley described the purpose of the coming numerous and small temples: “But there are many areas of the Church that are remote, where the membership is small and not likely to grow very much in the near future. Are those who live in these places to be denied forever the blessings of the temple ordinances?” After President Hinckley died, temples were announced in places without dozens of stakes that were not remote either, and the reason for this was never articulated by the prophet. (President Monson seldom spoke about temples.)

    President Nelson’s latest announcement was interesting because he laid the decision squarely as the Savior’s: “Let us never lose sight of what the Lord is doing for us now. He is making His temples more accessible. He is accelerating the pace at which we are building temples. He is increasing our ability to help gather Israel. He is also making it easier for each of us to become spiritually refined.” President Nelson spoke somewhat as if the development of these things is a surprise to him too. If the changes in the place of the temple in the lives of the saints is big for me, President Nelson had four more decades than me with things the old way.

  3. I remember back in the late 90s when Pres. Hinckley said they were going to have 100 temples by the year 2000, and at the time there were only 50ish around the world and it seemed like such a big goal. And now here we are at 300ish in various stages.

    My nephew is serving a mission in Thailand and shared the story of this man profiled in the LDS Living article. He was able to interview this brother for his baptism. Miracles are happening all over the world.
    https://www.ldsliving.com/my-life-has-changed-bangkok-thailand-temple-project-manager-is-baptized-finds-peace-in-the-gospel/s/11027?fbclid=IwAR0aE-RhNx-Bi7mBbxeBRhV2cNAtTTFMM-Fn7sKoMbVft4ymEfTLy_QObEk

    I know our family has enjoyed going to the various temple open houses that are within driving distance of our home. It’s made a deep impact on our children. They have the desire to attend the temple when they are of age.

  4. Temples as youth retention. Never ocurred to me until I read/heard it.
    Now the Aaronic Priests performing baptisms (as the baptizER) makes even more sense.

    Joyce, when you see “?fb” on a link, that just feeds the beast. Always delete the ?fb and everything after when you can.

  5. My 17-year-old son went to the temple this morning before school with his friends to do baptisms. Great stuff.

    (For those who are wondering, the teenagers here have seminary four days a week and take Wednesday mornings off because school starts late at 9:30 a.m. So, there is a tradition of teenagers doing temple trips on Wednesday morning rather than sleeping in.)

  6. One hundred temples to start off the next millennium was a big goal, but not as big as we would have thought before Pres. Hinckley explained to us Oct. 1997 how it would be done before presenting the goal in General Conference a year later.

    I am reminded of Elder Packer’s thought that we have done a pretty good job of distributing the authority of the priesthood, with men ordained and quorums organized throughout the world, but that we were lagging in distributing the power of the priesthood. There are temples dotting the land, as foretold, but they are not operating day and night without cease as Pres. Kimball foresaw.

    The temple closest to me, the Washington DC temple 30 years ago operated day and night with three endowment sessions beginning each hour. Now, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays there are three endowment sessions each day. On Thursdays and Fridays, sessions are once an hour and not beginning until 10 AM.

    From the Washington DC temple I can drive north to the Philadelphia temple in under three hours. The Philadelphia temple is open three days a week, and on each of those three days there are four endowment sessions, twelve total for the week. The Los Angeles temple is also now open only three days a week and has 27 sessions scheduled each week. These compare with the Jordan River temple which conducts 43 sessions each day Wednesday through Saturday starting at 6 AM and opens an hour earlier on Tuesdays to do 46 sessions.

    Let’s be grateful for our short drives, and let’s keep in mind that these numerous temples we’ve been gifted are being used at a fraction of their capacity, a fraction of what we experienced with temples 30 years ago. We have a ways to go yet.

  7. A correction to what I wrote above: It was April 1998, six months after he presented the idea of small temples in remote places in Oct. 1997, that Pres. Hinckley put out the idea of 100 temples by the end of 2000. It the end of the Oct. 1998 Conference, he reported on progress toward that goal.

Comments are closed.