See photos from the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple dedication

CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania — Evan and Janet Stoddard moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to attend graduate school in 1971 and never left.

More than 50 years later, they reside in the same home and are members of the Pittsburgh 7th Ward in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Stake. The 79-year-old Evan Stoddard serves as a stake patriarch and sealer in the Washington D.C. Temple, a four-hour drive away.

To now have the Pittsburgh temple less than an hour away is “a major deal,” he said.

“It means a shorter drive to begin with, but much beyond that,” Evan Stoddard said.

In his monthly trips to the Washington D.C. Temple, Stoddard has offered to take members who lack resources or can’t otherwise attend on their own, which is why the Pittsburgh temple will be such a blessing. He and his wife have already started to organize a baptismal excursion to the Pittsburgh temple for adults, including new members and people who are disabled or lack funds.

“It’s going to be a marvelous, marvelous thing, and something that just would have been so expensive and so complicated to organize beforehand,” he said with emotion in his voice. “As President [Russell M.] Nelson has said, it’s bringing the blessings of the temple and the temple covenants to the people. Here there are many people for whom this is going to be a major change in their gospel experience, and we’re so grateful.”

The Stoddards were among those who attended the dedication of the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Temple, presided over by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, on Sunday, Sept. 15.

Almost a year after attending the dedication of the Feather River California Temple, Ted Hansen returned home for the Pittsburgh temple dedication. It helped that it was the same weekend as his 60-year high school class reunion, but the 78-year-old could not stop smiling as he surveyed the new house of the Lord and reflected on his memories of the Church many decades earlier.

“In the late 1950s, early 1960s, I would never have guessed that the Church would have grown to the point that we would even have a stake; everyone was branches, there were no wards,” said Hansen, who added that his branch’s first chapel was built when he was a high school senior. “The thought of ever having a temple in Pittsburgh was beyond my comprehension as a 20-year-old.”

What has transpired in western Pennsylvania is a testament that this is the Lord’s work, he said.

“The gospel is spreading throughout the world. Israel is being gathered. Temples are being made available throughout the world so that everyone can receive temple blessings,” Hansen said. “[The work] is going in the direction the Lord would have it go.”

Following are photographs of the Pittsburgh temple and the Church leaders and members who participated in the day’s two dedicatory sessions.