Preliminary work — including grading and clearing the property and doing initial utility work — will begin this week at the site of the future Lethbridge Alberta Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Lethbridge temple — which was announced by President Russell M. Nelson in April 2023 general conference and will be Canada’s 10th house of the Lord — had its site location and exterior rendering previously released. The preliminary work onsite begins prior to a groundbreaking date for the temple being announced.
Crews are scheduled to begin clearing the nine-acre temple grounds, located at the corner of Whoop Up Drive West and Mauretania Road in Lethbridge.
City approvals are allowing the Church to begin preparatory work on the property, with the preliminary utility and grading work including running electricity to the site and installing water and sewer lines.
Also, Mauretania Road will need repairs where connections were made to the city’s underground utilities, and workers will remove excess soil from the site.
The goal is to finish the preparatory work prior to the arrival of cold winter weather.
Details on the initial site preparations were first announced Monday, Oct. 14, on ChurchofJesusChrist.org’s Canada Newsroom.
“We are excited for this first step in the process of building a house of the Lord in Lethbridge,” said Elder David C. Stewart, the Area Seventy over the Church’s Calgary and Lethbridge coordinating councils. “This sacred place will be a blessing for the many Latter-day Saints in the area. We are grateful to the city of Lethbridge for their ongoing support and collaboration.”
The Church has a total of 11 houses of the Lord in Canada, either dedicated and operated or announced and in planning. The Lethbridge will be the fourth in the province of Alberta, joining dedicated temples in Cardston, Calgary and Edmonton. Other dedicated temples are in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Montreal, Quebec; Regina, Saskatchewan; Toronto, Ontario; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Winnipeg, Manitoba. A temple is in planning for Victoria, British Columbia.
The Lethbridge Alberta Temple’s site location was released on Sept. 5, 2023, and its exterior rendering was published earlier this year, on April 29.
