The Apia Samoa Temple — the Church’s 22nd operating house of the Lord — will be closed for extensive renovation beginning Dec. 23.
News of this closure was published in a June 15 news release on ChurchofJesusChrist.org.
According to the release, members from the temple district are encouraged to attend other temples in the surrounding area as circumstances permit.
After the Apia temple was announced in 1977 and built in the following years, it was dedicated in 1983 by President Gordon B. Hinckley, then second counselor in the First Presidency.
“There has never been another day quite like this in the history of Samoa,” he said, adding, “I am confident God the Father smiles upon us, and the Savior.”
About the Apia temple
This won’t be the first time the Apia temple has undergone extensive renovations. On July 16, 2003 — a week after a fire destroyed the temple — the First Presidency announced the temple would be rebuilt.
The next month, local Church members gathered on the temple grounds on Aug. 5, 2003, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the temple’s dedication, recognizing their beloved building would return in the coming years.
An Oct. 19, 2003, groundbreaking ceremony marked the beginning of the reconstruction phase. Elder Dennis E. Simmons, then a General Authority Seventy and a counselor in the Church’s area presidency, presided over the event.
“With the loss of that great temple,” said Elder Simmons, “a great emptiness came upon the saints of Samoa. We can now rejoice with you once again; on this site, a house will be erected to the Lord.”
On Sept. 4, 2005, then-Church President Hinckley rededicated Samoa’s rebuilt temple. Labor “where the blessings of eternal life will be available to you and your forbearers whom you will serve there,” President Hinckley invited.
The Church in Samoa
More than 90,000 Latter-day Saints live in Samoa, meeting in about 170 wards and branches.
Besides the Apia temple, one other house of the Lord is planned for Samoa — the Savaiʻi Samoa Temple, which then-Church President Russell M. Nelson announced in 2023.
In 1863, Kimo Pelio and Samuela Manoa were sent from the Hawaiian Mission to commence missionary work in Samoa. Nearly a century later, the first stake in the Samoan Islands was organized in Apia, in 1962.
