Centenarian President Russell M. Nelson on Sunday dedicated the bicentennial temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It’s natural to wonder how quickly the church can build the 185 temples it has announced over the past six years as part of an unprecedented expansion. You may have seen or heard some say that it would take decades for the Church to maintain the pace of completing and dedicating 3.3 temples per year that it maintained between 2001 and 2022.
But the church is now building at a pace that goes far beyond that.
For example, last year the church dedicated eleven temples.
President Nelson’s dedication of the Deseret Peak Utah Temple in Tooele marked the completion of the fourteenth temple this year.
Church leaders are expected to dedicate two more buildings before the end of 2024: the Casper Wyoming Temple and the Tallahassee Florida Temple.
That brings the total this year to 16, making 2024 the second-largest year of temple dedications in Church history.
The Church dedicated 15 temples in 1999 and 34 in 2000 during a boom in smaller temple construction led by President Gordon B. Hinckley.
The Church has now completed and dedicated 22 of the 185 temples President Nelson announced, with 50 more under construction.
Two temple dedications are already planned for 2025 – in New Zealand and Ivory Coast – and another 48 temples are under construction.
Another groundbreaking is scheduled for the Grand Rapids Michigan Temple in December.
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Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce help announce 2024 Giving Machines locations (Nov. 13)
First Presidency congratulates Trump (November 6)
About the church
President Jeffrey R. Holland made his first international trip as Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during a visit to the Dominican Republic, where he told a packed stadium at a special stake conference that “miracles still exist.”
The First Presidency has announced the 2025 open houses and dedication dates for the Abidjan Ivory Coast Temple.
Also announced was the groundbreaking date for the Grand Rapids Temple in Michigan and a rendering of the planned San Jose Temple in California was released.
In a BYU devotional, Sister Amy A. Wright, first counselor in the Primary general presidency, shared four lessons for weathering today’s storms.
During a devotional at BYU-Idaho, Elder Hans T. Boom, a General Seventy, discussed three principles for balancing eternal and temporal priorities.
The church announced updates to the Perpetual Education Fund that expand opportunities and make education more affordable.
What I read
Meet the Latter-day Saint football coach who is having great success at Catholic colleges.
That rivalry game between BYU and Utah was wild. All the videos of people watching the ending at home were my favorite part. As BYU tries to go 12-0 during the regular season, this statistic glaringly illustrates just how difficult that is: Only one team in the country has a winning streak that long or longer. The army has won thirteen games in a row. Oregon has won 11 straight, including last year’s bowl game. Indiana (10-0) and BYU (9-0) are undefeated this season and are next on the list. So winning 12 straight in college football is incredibly difficult these days.
