At the 181st General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, prophet Thomas S. Monson announced the building of a new temple in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This will be the ninth Mormon temple to be built in Canada. Winnipeg is the capital of the province of Manitoba. Latter-day Saints in the area have been driving 400 miles to attend the temple in Regina, Saskatchewan. Read More →
On 4 October 2008 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) announced that a new temple will be built in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The new temple will be located at the northeast corner of Royal Oak Rd NW and Rocky Ridge Rd NW, Calgary, on a site purchased by the Church about four years ago. There are over 18,000 members of the Church in Calgary. The Tuscany/Royal Oak train station will be within walking distance of the temple and will be completed in 2011, about the same time as the temple is due to be completed. The Calgary Alberta Temple will be Canada’s eighth temple and Alberta’s third. Mormons first began to settle in southern Alberta in the 1880s as contract workers on the Canadian Pacific Railroad and as farmers in present-day Cardston. By 1895, the first stake in Alberta was established, and membership in the Church has continued to thrive ever since. Today there are over 75,000 members throughout the province... Read the rest of this article »
The decision to build a temple in Langely, near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was anounced on 25 May 2006. The groundbreaking took place on 4 August 2007. The temple is expected to reach completion in the spring of 2010. The temple sits on nearly 12 acres, which will also accommodate an LDS meeting house. The site is on a prominent hill, and the parcel of land was acquired by purchasing smaller parcels that were not originally for sale. Then President Gordon B. Hinckley chose the site during a trip to the area. The temple will be slightly over 19,000 square feet in size and will offer two sealing rooms and two endowment rooms. The new edifice will be Canada’s seventh operating temple and British Columbia’s first. It will serve the many saints of British Columbia who currently attend temples in Alberta or cross the U.S.-Canada border to attend the Seattle Washington Temple. A small branch of Latter-day Saints was organized in Langely... Read the rest of this article »
With the dedication of the Guadalajara Mexico temple, Mexico now has twelve operating temples. The first temple in Mexico City was dedicated in 1983. Since that time The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown considerably in Mexico. The Guadalajara temple, located in Mexico’s second largest city, will serve more than 60,000 members in southwestern Mexico. During the groundbreaking ceremony Elder Eran A. Call of the Seventy remarked, “What a blessing it is that I was a mission president here just 29 years ago,” he said. “We had four little branches here then. Now there are eight stakes [a group of congregations]. This is a great time to have a temple in Guadalajara.”1 The new Mormon temple is small but completely functional. President Hinckley said, “Every ordinance which is given in the Salt Lake Temple, the largest in the Church, is also given in every other temple, including these smaller structures. The fact is that they... Read the rest of this article »
The Mormon temple is literally a house of God. Throughout history, the Lord has commanded His people to build temples. Today, there are 146 Mormon temples operating, under construction, or announced. The Mormon temple is a house of learning wherein the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are reviewed, and profound truths of the kingdom of God are unfolded. Here, in the temple, the cares and worries of the world are put aside. The main purpose of the Mormon temple is to provide the ordinances necessary for exaltation into the celestial kingdom. It is a place of covenant-making, where those who enter promise to obey the laws of God and promise to use the knowledge of the Gospel to bless their own lives and those of others. The Mormon temple is open to all who fulfill the requirements of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed, all faithful members of the Mormon Church are invited and urged to make use of the Temple and to enjoy its privileges. The Toronto... Read the rest of this article »
The Cardston Alberta Canada Mormon Temple was dedicated on August 26, 1923, and was the first LDS temple built outside of the U.S. or its territories. However, the story of the Alberta temple began long before that summer day in 1923. The Saints were experiencing persecution in Utah, and President John Taylor asked Charles Card (a Latter-day Saint from Logan, Utah) to go to Canada and seek a place of refuge for the Church. In 1887 the first eight LDS families set up camp in an area scouted by Charles Card. Other families began to arrive, and the town of Cardston was planned in a grid fashion, and irrigation and plowing began. In 1888 one of the Twelve Apostles, John W. Taylor, visited the Saints in Canada and said, “I now speak by the power of prophecy and say that upon this very spot shall be erected a Temple to the name of Israel’s God, and nations shall come from far and near and praise His high and holy name.” Two years later President of the... Read the rest of this article »
The Halifax Nova Scotia temple, although a small temple, has made a big impact on the community and lives of members of the Mormon Church. Just as Elder Jay E. Jensen said at the groundbreaking, ““Don’t think of it as a small temple. Make it big in your hearts.”1 Members in Nova Scotia used to meet in hotels and school buildings. Now the members meet in beautiful chapels and even have their own temple. Richard Moses, second counselor in the Dartmouth Nova Scotia Stake presidency said, “It is impossible – there are not words – to adequately express our gratitude for this temple. No longer do we just look at a picture of a temple. Now, when my daughters look out their bedroom window, they see the softly lighted figure of the Angel Moroni standing as a beacon over the area.” 2 When the Mormon temple was opened to the public, prior to the dedication, about 8,000 people toured the temple. Many non-members commented on the peaceful and powerful... Read the rest of this article »
The Edmonton Alberta Temple is the 67th operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The temple is the second to be built in Alberta, the other having been built in Cardston in 1923. Previous to the building of the Edmonton Alberta Temple, many LDS couples would in fact move to Cardston after retirement in order to be near a temple. The Church had a slow start in Edmonton with the first meeting actually not held until 1933, with only 15 members present. It was not until 1951 that the first official Mormon meetinghouse was built. Now the new temple will serve about 15,700 members in the area. Many members expect the Mormon temple to bring even greater growth to the Church; among them is Stake President LeRoy Rollins who said about the new temple, “I imagined it. I worked toward it. I knew we would have a temple in Edmonton, it had to be. It marks a status we have not had before. It will cause even greater growth in this city.”... Read the rest of this article »
The leaders of the Mormon Church announced plans to build a temple in Montreal Quebec on August 6, 1998. The Montreal temple is the 6th temple to be built in Canada and the 86th Mormon temple worldwide. It was one of the temples announced with a long list of others, which President of the Mormon Church, Gordon B. Hinckley hoped to have completed by the end of 2000, so that there would be 100 operating temples throughout the world. There is a great deal of Mormon history in Montreal. The Church began to be established in Montreal in the 1920’s after Mormon missionaries were sent to Montreal in 1918. However there were many strong converts from Quebec as early as the 1830’s who emigrated to the United States to be with the rest of the Church. For a long time, Montreal was the only part of Canada with a strong membership. In 1942, a church building was purchased from a Protestant congregation, renovated, and used by the Mormon members in the area. By... Read the rest of this article »
News of the proposed Regina, Saskatchewan Temple was announced on August 3, 1998, while President Hinckley was visiting with missionaries and members in Regina. During the visit President Hinckley told the people, “You are good people… You get on your knees and pray to God. That is a wonderful thing, when all is said and done. … Many years ago, generations ago, family prayer was a very common phenomenon in Canada and the United States. There isn’t much of it anymore.”1 It is partly because of the prayers of the 6,700 members in the 252,000 square mile area of Saskatchewan that they now have a temple. Dedication of the Regina Temple made history, when for the first time two Mormon temples were dedicated the same day. Because of issues with transportation, President Hinckley’s dedication of the Halifax Nova Scotia temple was delayed a day. Not wanting members to have to go home and come back, President Hinckley decided to go ahead with the dedication... Read the rest of this article »
