Temples in South America Articles
Bolivia opened its doors to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1963. Less than forty years later there are over 110,000 members across the country.
In 1995 the Mormon Church announced that they would be building a Mormon temple in Cochabamba Bolivia. The next year President Hinckley presided over the groundbreaking. He addressed the 4,000 gathered Saints during one of the heaviest rainstorms the area had seen in ten years. “My beloved and wet brothers and sisters,”1 he began. Then he went on to share a story about a young woman, who as a girl, went with her father every Saturday to visit the Guatemala City temple while it was being built. She shared that during those visits she made the decision to be married in the temple. Years later she did.
Then the prophet said, “I want to challenge each of you here today to get a temple recommend now, to be worthy of a temple recommend. You will not be able to attend the new temple for two... Read the rest of this article »
“What a beautiful building it is – the workmanship is superb. I have never seen any (stonework) finer, anywhere. It is beautiful, a fitting monument to the good people of Colombia,” stated President Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Mormon Church, at the dedication of the Bogota Colombia Mormon Temple on April 24, 1999.1
From the time the announcement of the Mormon Temple was made, until the dedication in 1999, fifteen years had passed. Troubles with location and property for the Temple did not stifle the faith of the members, just the opposite. When a particular difficulty was faced, a special focus of fasting and prayer would produce miracles.2
Ten miles from downtown Bogota in the Niza section, sits the Bogota Colombia Mormon Temple. Combined with tall stained glass windows and silver-gray Brazilian granite on the exterior and marble finishes and motifs that are in the likeness of ancient Incan designs, the Mormon Temple creates an atmosphere... Read the rest of this article »
In November of 1966 the beautiful land of Venezuela was dedicated for the preaching of the Gospel, and within weeks four Mormon missionaries arrived in Venezuela. They arrived in a land that Christopher Columbus called the “Land of Grace; where the geography varies from rain forests to high mountain peaks to balmy beaches, and where the temperature is nearly seventy degrees at all times.1
The Mormon missionaries found a people who were ready to accept the Gospel, such as the Manuel and Luisa Vargas family. When Manuel and Luisa were married in 1969, they wanted a lot of children, but were concerned about the influences of the world. Six months later, when Luisa was pregnant with their first child, the missionaries knocked on their door to bring them the Gospel of Jesus Christ – within a few weeks they were baptized. When Luis was born, he became the first of a new generation of Venezuelans born and raised in the Mormon Church. This family with six... Read the rest of this article »
Many of us who sojourn on the earth have asked, “Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? What is my relationship to God? Will death rob me of the treasured associations of life? What of my family? Will there be another existence after this, and, if so, will we know one another there?”
These answers are found in the Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS/Mormons). These Temples are sacred places in which these and other eternal questions are answered. Each Mormon Temple is dedicated as a house of God, a place of peace, a place of holiness set apart from the world.
Much of the work that is done in the Mormon Temple is concerned with the family; we are each a member of God’s eternal family and we are members of an earthly family. Emphasis is placed on the sanctity and eternal nature of the marriage covenant and family relationships. Marriage partners who come to the Mormon Temple and who partake of its blessings... Read the rest of this article »
On April 2, 2000, an announcement was made that the Mormon Church was planning to build a temple in Paraguay. Although there were already eleven other dedicated temples in South America, the Asuncion Mormon Temple was the first temple to be built in Paraguay. For the more than 68,000 members that the Asuncion Temple will serve, the announcement was received with joy.
In 1994, Carlos Espinola, a member of the Mormon Church in Paraguay said, “We have lived in Paraguay since the Church had only two branches, I feel that the day is much closer now when there is going to be great growth in the Church here. When President Ezra Taft Benson dedicated this land for the preaching of the gospel, he said there would be many stakes in Paraguay. I can see that day coming.” Espinola’s remarks certainly apply to the Mormon Church in Paraguay.
The Mormon Church in Paraguay grew very slowly compared to much of the rest of South America from 1949 when Paraguay... Read the rest of this article »
At the dedicatory prayer of the Porto Alegre Brazil Mormon Temple in December 2000, President Gordon B. Hinckley declared the following: “Here we will serve Thee. Here we will be privileged to receive those precious ordinances which are timeless…and which seal us to one another as families, including the generations who have gone before us, all according to Thy plan for the salvation and exaltation of Thy children. May the ordinances revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and administered here in Thy house, become an eternal covenant between Thee and Thy faithful children.”1
The Mormon Church first established a presence in Brazil in 1927 with President Stoof and Elder Stoddard investigating the possibility of bringing missionaries to the country. In 1928, they returned with two missionaries, and the first baptism took place in April 1929. However, Mormon missionaries did not begin officially teaching the gospel until 1933. By 1960 there were fewer... Read the rest of this article »
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormons, has had a presence in Brazil since the 1920’s. During this time, most of the converts were German immigrants who came to Brazil after World War I. By 1931, 80 Brazilians had joined the Mormon Church near the city of Sao Paulo and with that, the first Mormon Church meetinghouse was erected.
During World War II, the Mormon missionaries were removed from Brazil and at the conclusion of the war, they returned. From this point, the Brazilian natives began joining the Church by the hundreds, and in 2006, the membership continues to grow at a steady rate.
On August 23, 2002, the First Presidency of the Mormon Church announced the building of a Mormon Temple in the city of Curitiba, Brazil. This will be the 123rd Mormon Temple for the Church and the fourth in the country of Brazil – with Sao Paulo, Campinas, Porto Alegre and Recife preceding the Curitiba.
Church authorities... Read the rest of this article »
To Mormons, a temple is a building dedicated to be a house of God. Mormon temples differ from a church meetinghouse, in that the meetinghouse is used for weekly worship services, and the temples are used for special forms of worship. The importance of temples is emphasized in the Mormon Church and the Church strongly encourages its members to become worthy to attend the temple often.
Worthy members participate in sacred ordinances and make covenants with God in the temple. These ordinances and covenants are necessary for the salvation of man and can only be performed in temples. The temple is a learning center where those who enter gain a better understanding of our purpose in life and our relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Only in the Mormon temple can a family be sealed together forever. Marriage in the temple joins a man and woman as husband and wife eternally, if they honor their covenants. When a man and woman are married in the... Read the rest of this article »
The Recife Brazil Temple sits on 5.59 acres, shaded by mango trees and towering royal palms, and surrounded by a beautiful garden. The temple exterior is finished with Asa branca granite from Brazil and features a single spire topped with a gold statue of the angel Moroni. The Mormon temple is larger than many being built with a total of 37,200 square feet, to accommodate the 137,500 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in northern Brazil. Many of them have not had a chance to go the temple because they could not afford the 72-hour trip to the temple in São Paulo. Now they will be able to enjoy the blessings of the LDSMormon) temple in their own lives and an opportunity to bless the lives of their ancestors as well. (
President Gordon B. Hinckley, during a visit to members and Mormon missionaries in Brazil, presided over the groundbreaking ceremony on 11 November 1996. During the ceremony he said, “The gospel is not complete without... Read the rest of this article »
