The day after the sixth house of the Lord in the Philippines was dedicated, the First Presidency released a groundbreaking date for another.
On Saturday, Aug. 8, ground will be broken for the Naga Philippines Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Steven D. Shumway of the Philippines Area presidency will preside over the groundbreaking and offer the dedicatory prayer on the site and construction process.
Information about the upcoming ceremony was published June 1 on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
The Naga temple is planned as a one-story building of approximately 18,850 square feet on Lot 1045-A-1-A Barangay of Concepcion Grande, in the city of Naga, Bicol, Philippines. An ancillary building and a meetinghouse are also planned for the 9.11-acre site.
On Oct. 2, 2022, then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced this house of the Lord for Naga. It was one of 18 temple locations he identified in the October 2022 general conference.
The temples and Church in the Philippines
Yesterday — Sunday, May 31 — the Bacolod Philippines Temple was dedicated by Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It was the third house of the Lord dedicated in the Philippines this year, doubling the number of dedicated temples in the country from three to six.
Fourteen houses of the Lord are dedicated, under construction or announced in the Philippines.
Six of them have been dedicated: the Manila (in 1984), Cebu City (2010), Urdaneta (2024), Alabang (January 2026), Davao (May 2026) and Bacolod (May 2026) temples.
Another two temples are under construction: in Cagayan de Oro, since August 2024, and for Tacloban City, since January 2025.
That leaves six houses of the Lord in planning stages: in Naga (announced 2022), Santiago (2022), Tuguegarao City (2023), Iloilo (2023), Laoag (2023) and San Jose del Monte (2025).
Since the Philippines opened for missionary work in 1961, Church growth in the country has been among the fastest in the world. By 1970, the Church had a presence on eight major Philippine islands. In 1974, then-Elder Ezra Taft Benson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the first stake in the Philippines.
The country is now home to more than 900,000 Latter-day Saints in almost 1,400 wards and branches. With its high number of Church members, the Philippines has the fourth-largest population of Latter-day Saints in the world.
