Temples in South America Articles
At the October 2009 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes inadvertently called the “Mormon Church”) it was announced that a Mormon temple would be built in Fortaleza Brazil. There are 13 stakes near Fortaleza and several more in outlying areas. Members currently travel nearly 500 miles to attend the Recife Brazil Temple. The Fortaleza Temple will be the seventh Mormon temple in Brazil, where there are nearly 1.2 million Latter-day Saints.
The Fortaleza Brazil Temple will be built in the coastal neighborhood of Dunas on a site located across from the esteemed FANOR, an institute of higher education. The exact location is Avenida Santos Dumont esq Rua Mal. Mascarenhas Morais, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil.
The design for the Fortaleza is a classical colonial design with two spires. An accommodation Building, a meetinghouse, and maintenance buildings will also be constructed on the site.
The groundbreaking... Read the rest of this article »
In October 2011 at the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Prophet Thomas S. Monson announced the construction of a second temple in Colombia. The first is in Bogota. The new temple will be in Barranquilla, Colombia, which is located in northern Colombia, near the Caribbean Sea. Located on the delta of the Magdalena River, the city serves as a port for river and maritime transportation within Colombia.
The first LDS Missionaries arrived in Colombia in 1966. Five years later, 27 congregations were established in 10 cities. Today, Church membership is nearly nineteen times that of 20 years ago. Colombia has 172,534 members of the Church in 272 congregations, and four missions.
LDS.org has a separate website for Colombia (in Spanish), which you can access by clicking here.
For information and Mormon news about the other temples that have just been announced visit the newsroom of The Church of Jesus Christ of... Read the rest of this article »
On 13 December 2008 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) announced that it will build a temple in Trujillo, Peru. The temple will be located at Teodoro Valcárcel, Urbanización Primavera, Trujillo, La Libertad, Peru. This location already has a stake center on the site. The site is located near the prominent Campo Eterno cemetery, on the highway to Huanchaco. This will be the second LDS temple in Peru.
Members in the Trujillo area must travel 9-10 hours to reach the existing temple in Lima. Some days, the Lima Temple is so busy, that patrons patiently wait for hours before being able to enter.
Elder Rafael E. Pino of the Seventy conducted groundbreaking ceremonies for the new Trujillo Peru Temple, on Saturday, September 17, 2011. The second LDS temple in Peru (the Lima Peru Temple was dedicated in 1986), it will serve more than 88,000 LDS Church members in the area.
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On 4 October 2008 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) announced the construction of a new temple in Córdoba, Argentina. The new temple will be located in Villa Belgrano next to the Church mission home, and will be Argentina’s second temple.
Members in the Córdoba area currently travel some 400 miles to participate in temple ordinances in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple, which serves 60 stakes and 30 districts throughout Argentina.
Membership of the Church in Argentina has grown steadily since the 1920’s. The first members were European immigrants who requested missionaries. There were 356, 000 Mormons in Argentina in 2006.
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The Manaus Brazil Mormon Temple, now under construction, is located at Estrada da Ponta Negra, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, on the banks of the Negro River. The temple was announced on 23 May 2007, and the groundbreaking took place on 20 June 2008.
The Manaus Brazil Mormon Temple will serve the Latter-day Saint membership in northern Brazil, and will be the sixth temple to be built in the country. Four temples are located in the heavily populated south, and one is located on the east coast at Recife. Manaus is in northwestern Brazil in the Amazon region. There are over 1 million Latter-day Saints in Brazil.
An interesting fact about the temple is that it will have a port entry for those traveling to worship there by way of the river. The Negro River joins the Amazon about 11 miles south of the temple location.
The public is invited to visit the temple during an open house from Friday, 18 May through Saturday, 2 June 2012, excluding Sundays. The... Read the rest of this article »
In 1982, President Spencer W. Kimball, then President of the Mormon Church, announced that there would be a Mormon Temple built in Ecuador. However, it took fourteen years to secure the necessary government authorizations, and the Temple was not completed and dedicated until 1999.
Ecuador is a land of faithful members; before the Temple in Ecuador was finished, the members would travel by bus to attend the Lima Peru Temple which would take three days one way, one to two days in the Temple, and then another three days on the bus back to their homes. Area representative Elder Jensen remarked that, “We just marvel at their faith. It almost makes you weep when you see the sacrifices they make in order to go to the Temple for their one time. Some will return during their lifetime, but not many.”1
Why would these Ecuadorians and others around the world make such a sacrifice to attend the Mormon Temple? Because truths are taught and ordinances are performed... Read the rest of this article »
The Montevideo Uruguay Mormon Temple is the 103rd operating temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church). It is situated on 1.59 acres at Bolonia 1722, Carrasco, Montevideo, Uruguay. The temple is 10,700 square feet with two ordinance rooms and two sealing rooms. The architectural style is classic modern with a single spire topped by a statue of the angel Moroni, and the temple is faced with asa branca granite.
The temple was announced on 2 November 1998, and the groundbreaking took place on 27 April 1999. The temple was dedicated on 18 March 2001 by Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley with 6,500 Latter-day Saints in attendance.
The temple building site was acquired by the Church during the 1960’s. It also houses two mission headquarters, a distribution center and Church offices. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, served a mission to Uruguay as a young man. He presided at the temple’s groundbreaking... Read the rest of this article »
In 1850, Mormon missionaries from America arrived in Chile to begin preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Chilean people; however, their stay was not to last, due to the apparent language barrier. Ninety-five years would pass before two missionaries from Argentina would arrive to begin preaching again.
It was at this time that Brother and Sister Ricardo Garcia were the first to be baptized. Brother Garcia clearly remembers his baptism in 1956, “I knew that this was the true Church – mine was not just faith, but a conviction…because of the teachings on the Word of Wisdom and tithing, I thought it would be impossible for the [Mormon] Church to succeed here. …now there are hundreds and…thousands of people”.1 Twenty-seven years [1983] after Brother Garcia’s baptism, and at the dedication of the Santiago Chile Mormon Temple, there were 140,000 members of the Mormon Church in the country of Chile.
Three years prior to the dedication, the... Read the rest of this article »
Plans to build the Campinas, Brazil Mormon Temple were announced on April 3, 1997. More than 30 temples were announced on this day, and the Mormon Church leadership requested that members send in donations to help specifically with temple work. The Mormon members from the Campinas area responded quickly, sending in donation after donation. One of the most touching donations came from an eight-year-old boy who had worked tirelessly to earn $100.
This would be the fourth Mormon temple to be built in Brazil.
The first Mormon missionaries did not arrive in Brazil until the 1920’s. Most of the early converts in Brazil were German immigrants coming to Brazil after World War I. In 1931, the 80 members of the small branch near Sao Paulo built the first Mormon meetinghouse in Brazil. During World War II Mormon missionaries were removed from Brazil, but when missionaries returned after the war, Brazilian natives began joining the Church by the hundreds. The Mormon... Read the rest of this article »
In 1975 at an area conference in Brazil, then President of the Mormon Church, Spencer W. Kimball, announced that a temple would be built in Sao Paulo. The members rejoiced and wept; but above all they were ready to sacrifice, work, and prepare for the Mormon temple in their midst.
Since part of the cost of the building of the temple is borne by the general membership of the Mormon Church, South American members were given an assignment to earn money towards the temple fund, in addition to paying tithes and offerings. Each ward or branch was assigned an amount of money to raise. ‘The members were given a dollar quota, not a peso quota, which meant that despite inflation of the peso, they paid a standard amount converted to the United States dollar. South American inflation [in 1974] ranged from forty percent in one country to 600 percent in another.’1 Many of the members did not have money to contribute to the temple fund. Members offering their... Read the rest of this article »
