Ground has been broken for the João Pessoa Brazil Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Presiding over the Jan. 24 groundbreaking was Brazil native Elder Joni L. Koch, a General Authority Seventy and president of the Church’s Brazil Area.
Once built and dedicated, the João Pessoa temple will become the first house of the Lord in the Brazilian state of Paraíba in northeastern Brazil. João Pessoa is the state’s capital.
The future location of this house of the Lord — just half a mile from the Atlantic Ocean — will make it the easternmost temple in the Americas.
Information about the João Pessoa temple’s groundbreaking was published in a Jan. 24 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Photos were also published of the ceremony, which was livestreamed in Portuguese.
Earlier on the same day, ground was also broken for the Jacksonville Florida Temple.
Elder Koch spoke in João Pessoa to groundbreaking attendees — Latter-day Saints, community members, religious leaders, civic authorities and guests — about the purpose of a temple.
The house of the Lord allows disciples of Christ to heed His invitation to “be ye therefore perfect” (Matthew 5:48), he said.
“Without temples, it is not possible to attain this perfection,” said Elder Koch, adding that perfection comes through Jesus Christ.
Latter-day Saints, he said, more fully take upon themselves the Savior’s name as they attend the temple, make and keep covenants, and remember His atoning sacrifice.
In his dedicatory prayer on the site and construction process, Elder Koch asked for a blessing on local Church and community members: “May the beginning of this work inspire us all to rededicate our lives to Thee and Thy Beloved Son.”
Prior to Elder Koch’s remarks, a choir sang “A Ti oramos, Pai Celeste” — or “Our Prayer to Thee” in English — written by President Russell M. Nelson. As Church President from January 2018 to September 2025, President Nelson announced 14 houses of the Lord for Brazil.
That was the second-largest number of temples he announced for a single country, under the 73 for the United States and matching the 14 for Mexico.
About the João Pessoa temple and the Church in Brazil
A single-story structure, the João Pessoa temple is planned to be approximately 18,850 square feet. It will be built on a 3.9-acre site at Rua Paulino Pinto and Avenida Ministro José Américo de Almeida, in the Cabo Branco neighborhood of João Pessoa.
On Oct. 1, 2023, President Nelson announced a house of the Lord for João Pessoa, Brazil. It was among 20 temple locations he identified in that general conference, alongside one more for Brazil, in Goiânia.
Latter-day Saint missionaries began preaching in southern Brazil in 1928. By the time the São Paulo Brazil Temple — the first in South America — was dedicated in 1978, membership in the country had reached 54,000.
Home now to more than 1.5 million Latter-day Saints in around 2,100 congregations, Brazil has 24 temples in various stages of operation, construction and planning.
The country’s 11 operating temples include the São Paulo (dedicated in 1978), Recife (2000), Porto Alegre (2000), Campinas (2002), Curitiba (2008), Manaus (2012), Fortaleza (2019), Rio de Janeiro (2022), Belém (2022), Brasília (2023) and Salvador (2024) temples.
In addition to the João Pessoa temple, another four houses of the Lord are under construction in Brazil, including the Belo Horizonte (since 2023), Ribeirão Preto (2024), Londrina (2024) and Natal (2025) temples.
That leaves eight temples in planning and design stages, for São Paulo East (announced 2020), Vitória (2021), Maceió (2022), Santos (2022), Teresina (2023), Goiânia (2023), Florianópolis (2024) and Campo Grande (2025).
