As a BYU student, I lived right down the street from the Provo Tabernacle, and had many opportunities to attend church services and other events there. It was a beautiful building. I, along with many others, were heart broken in 2010, when it burned down. When the Church decided to rebuild this wonderful building as a temple, I was beyond happy.
Today, the Church announced the open house dates for the new Provo City Center Temple. From the Mormon Newsroom:
The free public open house starts on Friday, January 15, and will go through Saturday, March 5, 2016. It will run every day except for the Sundays of January 17, 24 and 31 and February 7, 14, 21 and 28.
The temple will be dedicated in three sessions on Sunday, March 20, 2016, with the cultural celebration taking place on Saturday, March 19.
The dedicatory sessions will be held at 9:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. and will be broadcast to Utah meetinghouses. The three-hour block of meetings will be cancelled for that Sunday.
Church President Thomas S. Monson announced the second Provo temple in October 2011, and ground was broken to begin construction May 12, 2012.
The temple is located on University Avenue between Center Street and 100 South.
The Church’s 112-year-old Provo Tabernacle burned in December 2010 and only the shell of the building was left. After the burned-out structure was gutted, Mormon leaders decided to use the building’s exterior to house the temple.
Temples are everywhere. We’re excited for the people of Provo.
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Are open houses usually that long? Nearly three months seems like a very long time.
Provo City Center Temple Open House Dates Announced: http://t.co/FySfqpstIL
This one will be long, because it’s Utah, and this temple has been so anticipated by the Provo community.
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Clark, You mean nearly two, though some might say that’s too short.
Interesting that the announcement gives a date, without further explanation, for “the cultural celebration,” rather than “a cultural celebration.” Apparently that’s a recognized, fixed element of temple dedications now.
The site ldschurchtemples.com gives dates of previous temple open house. There has been a variety of lengths. Los Angeles, three months. Halifax and Regina, four days and two days. Payson was one month, and Draper was two months. With the Provo City Center temple there is likely above average interest in walking through, but a smaller capacity to handle crowds compared with other Utah temples.
I miscounted; Los Angeles was only two months, 19 December-18 February.
I think the cultural celebrations are important. My nieces and sister were involved in the Gilbert Temple cultural celebration. It was a faith building experience in many ways. The hot dusty days of rehearsal, followed by being deluged by rain the night of the performance, praying for conditions to be right so their program could continue. All of those things have been important to them, and I know they wouldn’t change that. I think it also involves the kids in a good way, and gets them excited about the temple.
Whoops. Yeah. Typo. I guess it’s not as uncommon as I thought. I always assumed it was just two weeks.
As a Springville resident, I’m looking forward to the Tempernacle.