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Dedication date set for Moses Lake Washington Temple — the third that day

Elder Cook will preside at the temple’s Sept. 17 dedication, with an Aug. 4-19 open house planned

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has scheduled a Sept. 17 dedication date for the Moses Lake Washington Temple — the third temple dedication planned for that date.

Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will preside and dedicate the house of the Lord in Moses Lake in two sessions planned for 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. that day.

Two other temples have already been scheduled for Sept. 17 dedications. Last month, the First Presidency announced same-day dedications for the Bentonville Arkansas Temple and the Brasília Brazil Temple, to be dedicated by Quorum of the Twelve members Elder David A. Bednar and Elder Neil L. Andersen, respectively.

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How rare are multiple-temple, same-day dedications? A historical look back is included below.

August open house

In addition to the Moses Lake Washington Temple dedication, a public open house will run Friday, Aug. 4, through Saturday, Aug. 19, excluding Sundays. A media day will be held Monday, July 31, with invited guests touring the temple from Tuesday, Aug. 1, through Thursday, Aug. 3.

The dedication and open house details were published Monday, March 13, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.

The dedicatory sessions will be broadcast to all units in the Moses Lake Washington Temple district, and additional details regarding the dedication and open house will be announced as the event approaches.

The single-story temple of approximately 20,000 square feet is located on Yonezawa Boulevard between Division Street and Road K NE, across the street from Yonezawa Park. A 17,000-square-foot meetinghouse was built adjacent to the temple on the 17-acre site.

Moses Lake temple milestones

President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for Moses Lake, Washington, during April 2019 general conference, one of eight temples announced during the closing session. The temple site location was identified six months later, and an exterior rendering released a year after the temple’s announcement.

Ground was broken for the Moses Lake temple on Oct. 10, 2020, with Elder David L. Stapleton, an Area Seventy, presiding.

The temple will be the fourth dedicated temple in the state of Washington, following the Seattle Washington Temple (dedicated in 1980), Spokane Washington Temple (1999) and Columbia River Temple (2001) in Richland. A temple for Tacoma was announced in October 2022 general conference.

Nearly 290,000 Latter-day Saints comprising more than 520 congregations reside in Washington.

Same-day dedications for multiple temples

Four months ago, the Quito Ecuador Temple and Belém Brazil Temple were dedicated on Nov. 20 — with Elder Cook dedicating the Quito temple and Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles the house of the Lord in Belém.

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It marked the first time since 2000 that two temples were dedicated on the same day.

And the first two-dedication day wasn’t planned as such.

In November 1999, President Gordon B. Hinckley was scheduled to dedicate temples on back-to-back days — the Halifax Nova Scotia Temple on Saturday, Nov. 13, and the Regina Saskatchewan Temple on Sunday, Nov. 14.

However, mechanical issues with the airplane President Hinckley was to use resulted in a day’s delay. The decision was made to have the Church President dedicate the Halifax temple a day later and President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve, to preside at the Regina dedication on its regularly scheduled date. The result — the Halifax and Regina temple dedications occurring on Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999.

Several same-day dedications in 2000

The next year, as the Church continued its push to meet President Hinckley’s announced goal to have 100 dedicated temples by the end of the century, same-day dedications occurred three times in 2000 — a fourth if you count what happened in Mexico in February of that year.

On Saturday Feb. 26, 2000, President Hinckley presided at the first of six sessions for the two-day dedication of the Ciudad Juárez Mexico Temple. Then he left to preside over the Hermosillo Sonora Mexico Temple on Sunday, Feb. 27, with President Thomas S. Monson, then first counselor in the First Presidency, finishing the final sessions in Ciudad Juarez while President Hinckley did the Hermosillo temple dedication.

The three other instances of same-day dedications:

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