A first look at the João Pessoa Brazil Temple is now available, following the release of the temple’s exterior rendering by the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The rendering shows the projected single-story temple of approximately 18,850 square feet and its central spire.
It is one of 23 total temples — dedicated, under construction or in planning — in Brazil, South America’s largest nation.
The rendering was first published Monday, July 8, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
President Russell M. Nelson announced a house of the Lord for João Pessoa, one of 20 new temple locations he identified in the closing session of the October 2023 general conference.
Less than two months later, the temple’s site was released. The temple will be built on a 3.9-acre site just west of Rio Jaguaribe at the northwest intersection of Rua Paulino Pinto and Avenida Ministro José Américo de Almeida in the Cabo Branco neighborhood of João Pessoa, a port city in the state of Paraíba in northeastern Brazil, about 75 miles north of Recife.
Nearly 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in more than 2,170 congregations reside in Brazil, with missionary work and Church operations dating back to 1928. The Book of Mormon was translated and published in Portuguese in 1940, helping spark an era of growth in Brazil.
Leading off Brazil’s 23 total temples is the São Paulo Brazil Temple, the first not only in that country but across all of South America when it was dedicated in 1978.
Other dedicated and operating temples are in Belém, Brasília, Campinas, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Porto Alegre, Recife and Rio de Janeiro, with a temple scheduled for dedication in Salvador on Oct. 20.
Temples in Belo Horizonte and Ribeirão Preto are under construction, to be joined by the future house of the Lord in João Pessoa.
An additional nine temples are in planning and design in Brazil — besides the one in João Pessoa. The others are in Florianópolis, Goiânia, Londrina, Maceió, Natal, Santos, São Paulo East, Teresina and Vitória.
