With a groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 17, construction has begun on the Austin Texas Temple. It is one of nine houses of the Lord dedicated, under construction or announced for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Texas.
The groundbreaking was one of three for temples around the world on Aug. 17 — the other two were for the Londrina Brazil Temple and the Santiago West Chile Temple.
Elder Michael A. Dunn, General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the North America Southwest Area presidency, presided at the Austin Texas Temple groundbreaking, offering remarks and a prayer dedicating the site.
Information and photos of the groundbreaking ceremony were published Aug. 19 on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
Elder Dunn said in the prayer, “Help us, as a people, to continue to stand firmly on holy ground, to reach for heaven even as heaven reaches us in the form of this magnificent Austin Texas Temple.”
Elder Dunn also recognized leaders of several faith traditions who attended the groundbreaking.
“You honor us with your presence,” he said. “And we want you to know that while we deem this a house of the Lord, it is not just our house of the Lord. It is yours as well.”
Allie LaFeber of the Round Rock Texas Stake shared that she had an older brother who died of cancer before she was born. She grew up hearing stories about him, holding in her heart the hope that she will meet him one day.
“Because of the Savior’s Atonement and the eternal perspective that temples give us, I know that we can live together as families with our Heavenly Father,” said Allie, a youth who spoke at the groundbreaking.
About the Austin Texas Temple
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Austin during the April 2022 general conference, one of 17 locations he announced on April 3, 2022, bringing to 100 the number of temples he had announced since becoming President of the Church in 2018. Through April 2024 general conference, he has announced 168 temples.
The exterior rendering of the Austin Texas Temple was first published in September 2023, and site location for the central Texas house of the Lord was released in December 2022.
The house of the Lord is to be built on a 10.6-acre site adjacent to an existing meetinghouse at 1801 E. Park St., Cedar Park, Texas. It is planned as a single-story temple of approximately 30,000 square feet. Cedar Park is a suburb northwest of Austin.
About temples and the Church in Texas
The Austin temple is one of nine houses of the Lord in the Lone Star State. Operating temples are in Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, McAllen and San Antonio, with one in Fort Worth under construction. Two others in McKinney and south Houston are in planning.
Missionaries first visited the south-central U.S. state in 1843. In 1898, about 300 Church members settled on land purchased by the Church in northeast Texas that would become the colony of Kelsey, about 110 miles east of Dallas.
Church membership in Texas has grown rapidly in recent decades — from 132,000 Latter-day Saints in 1985 to just over 210,000 in 2000. Today more than 385,000 members of the Church comprise the 750-plus congregations in the state.
