Exterior renderings have been released for Oklahoma’s second house of the Lord, the Tulsa Oklahoma Temple, and Samoa’s second house of the Lord, the Savaiʻi Samoa Temple.
These renderings were first published in an Oct. 20 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
On Oct. 1, 2023, the late Church President Russell M. Nelson announced houses of the Lord for both Tulsa and Savaiʻi in general conference. This marked the second time President Nelson announced 20 temple locations, the most identified at one time.
Tulsa Oklahoma Temple
As previously announced, the Tulsa temple will be a single-story structure of approximately 29,600 square feet. It will be built on a 25.7-acre site at the northwest corner of 51st Street and 136th East Avenue in Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma.
The state’s first of two temples — the Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple — was dedicated July 30, 2000, by President James E. Faust, second counselor in the First Presidency. After extensive renovations, it was rededicated May 19, 2019, by then-President Henry B. Eyring, second counselor in the First Presidency.
The first Latter-day Saint congregation in Oklahoma was created 1921 in Gore, Oklahoma, about 60 miles southeast of Tulsa. The state’s first meetinghouse for the Church was built in Manard, Cherokee County, in 1892.
Oklahoma’s first stakes were established in 1960 — one in Tulsa on May 1, the other in Oklahoma City on Oct. 23. The Oklahoma Mission was created on June 10, 1970.
Tulsa is the second-most-populous city in Oklahoma, a state home to more than 53,000 Church members in 94 congregations.
Savaiʻi Samoa Temple
Planned as a single-story building of approximately 29,630 square feet, the Savaiʻi temple will be built on a 4.6-acre site. This house of the Lord — to be the island’s first — will stand at Lot 1098 to Lot 1105 in Fataloa, a subarea of Salelologa village on the southeastern edge of the island of Savaiʻi.
Samoa is home to one operating temple, the Apia Samoa Temple, dedicated Aug. 5, 1983, by President Gordon B. Hinckley, then second counselor in the First Presidency. It was the Church’s 22nd operating temple. He later rededicated the temple as Church President on Sept. 4, 2005, after a fire necessitated its rebuilding.
About 75 miles southeast of Apia, another house of the Lord is under construction on the island of Tutuila, part of the United States territory of American Samoa. Ground was broken for the Pago Pago American Samoa Temple on Oct. 30, 2021, presided over by Elder K. Brett Nattress, a General Authority Seventy and then first counselor in the Church’s Pacific Area presidency.
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.
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. Twelve years later, it became the first country organized entirely into stakes, with no small districts.
Nearly 90,000 Latter-day Saints comprise over 165 congregations in Samoa.
