The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has released the site location for the Savai’i Samoa Temple, less than six months from when a new house of the Lord was announced for the South Pacific island nation.
With plans calling for a single-story building of approximately 29,630 square feet, the temple will be built on a 5.5-acre parcel at Lot 1098 to Lot 1105 in Fataloa, a subarea of Salelologa village on the southeastern edge of the island of Savai’i.
Church President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Savai’i on Oct. 1, 2023, one of 20 new locations he identified at the close of the Sunday afternoon session of October 2023 general conference.
The location and an accompanying map were first published Monday, March 11, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. More information for the temple — such as an exterior rendering and date for groundbreaking — will be released later.
The Independent State of Samoa consists of two main islands — the larger Savai’i and ‘Upolu — along with two smaller inhabited islands and several uninhabited smaller islands.
The house of the Lord on Savai’i will be the country’s second temple, following the Apia Samoa Temple, which was dedicated in 1983. After a fire destroyed the temple in 2003 during renovations, it was rebuilt and rededicated in 2005.
The Apia temple is in Samoa’s capital city, some 30 miles from Salelologa, across the Apolima Strait and on the north-central area of the island of ‘Upolu. Another house of the Lord — the Pago Pago American Samoa Temple — is about 110 miles to the east on the United States territory of American Samoa.
Missionaries first taught the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in the Samoan Islands in 1863, with a formal mission organized in 1888.
In 1962, Samoa became one of the first countries outside the United States to have an organized stake; 12 years later, it became the first country organized entirely into stakes, with no small districts.
Today, nearly 88,000 Latter-day Saints comprising 165 congregations reside in Samoa.
