For the fifth time in as many weekends, ground has been broken for a new temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The latest is the Elko Nevada Temple, with its Saturday, May 7, groundbreaking ceremony signaling the start of the temple’s construction phase.
“This temple will be God’s house … a bounteous mine of spiritual ‘gold’ that will truly enrich us, and we need not look anywhere else to find true and lasting peace, happiness and fulfillment in our lives, our families and our homes,” said Elder Paul B. Pieper, a General Authority Seventy and president of the Church’s North America Southwest Area.
Elder Pieper, who presided at the event and offered a dedicatory prayer on the temple’s site and construction phase, was joined by his wife, Sister Melissa Piper, and regional and local leaders of the Church, local community leaders and invited guests.
“As we watch this temple rise in the coming months,” Elder Piper said, “may we reach out to God with a greater desire to know Him and love Him and to know and love our neighbors.”
Participants in the groundbreaking ceremonies included Latter-day Saints from congregations in Elko and nearby towns. A broadcast of the event was available to those living in the temple district.
The Elko temple groundbreaking served as the Church’s sixth such ceremony of 2022, all since mid-March and the fifth straight in as many Saturdays. The year’s other temple groundbreakings include events at Freetown, Sierra Leone (March 19); Bahía Blanca, Argentina (April 9); Grand Junction, Colorado (April 16); Lindon, Utah (April 23); and Farmington, New Mexico (April 30).
Three similar groundbreakings have been scheduled for next month — on June 4 in Burley, Idaho, and on June 18 in both Smithfield, Utah, and Yorba Linda, California.
With the Sunday, May 8, dedication of the Rio de Janeiro Brazil Temple, the Church of Jesus Christ has 171 dedicated temples and another 50 temples — now including the Elko Nevada Temple — either under construction or completed and awaiting dedication.
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Elko as one of 20 new temple locations identified during April 2021 general conference.
A single-story building of roughly 10,000 square feet, the Elko Nevada Temple will anchor a 5.2-acre site adjacent to the southeast corner of Ruby View Golf Course, in the north part of the city.
The temple’s site location was announced June 10, 2021, and an exterior rendering was released three months later, on Sept. 17, 2021.
The Elko temple will be the third in the state of Nevada, following temples in Las Vegas (dedicated in 1989) and Reno (dedicated in 2000), and will serve Latter-day Saints residing in northeastern Nevada and surrounding areas. Located on Interstate 80, the city of Elko is 230 miles west of Salt Lake City and 290 miles east of Reno.
Nearly 183,000 Latter-day Saints — in more than 40 stakes and 362 congregations — reside in the state.
